The Viper Squad (22 page)

Mike was surprised at the casual English and unguarded attitude of this young officer. He had apparently decided he was among
friends and could speak off the record.

Mike sounded him out on this. “Did the general say anything about us?”

“He said you were like family to him.”

Mike exchanged a glance with Andre. “Like family?”

“Yes,” the officer said. “Your men killed those members of the Clara Elizabeth Ramirez Metropolitan Commando. That was the
guerrilla group which killed his brother-in-law, Colonel Cerezo Ramirez, and two other members of the Treasury Police. The
general says you avenged his brother-in-law’s death and that his family is grateful.”

Lance felt his stomach tighten. He was sorry now he had not told Mike Campbell everything that happened. Mike would have looked
out for him and steered a safe course. Lance felt that anytime now something was going to go badly wrong and he would be exposed.
The general sounded like the last person he should be near when and if
this happened. Lance tried to roll down a window of the Cherokee van to get a breath of night air, but the inch—thick Plexiglas
was sealed in place.

They pulled off the highway into a residential suburb that was mostly winding roads between high stone walls, many of them
floodlit, with armed guards standing with glowing cigarette tips in the dark outside the heavy wooden doors or inside the
strongly barred gates.

They received a visual check from four uniformed Treasury policemen before a massive wood door in a high wall was opened to
admit their vehicle.

“Is this the general’s home?” Andre asked when he saw the lighted picture windows of an ultramodern luxury house beyond a
swimming pool with underwater illumination.

The driver laughed. “He lives in a mansion. This is only the place he built for his mistress.”

At the door, Victor Escandell greeted them like long-lost friends. Bald, going to flab, but still a very domineering presence,
he shook their hands and slapped their shoulders. He spoke only in Spanish, and the officer who had been their driver translated
as much as he could for them, since the general didn’t pause much to give him a chance to catch up. The general explained
that he understood English well and that they should speak it to him—it was just that in conversation he never had the time
to search for the English words he needed. He felt more relaxed using an interpreter.

“My good friends, avengers of the wrong that has been done to my sister,” he told them on the doorsteps, hands outstretched
as if he were addressing a political rally, “welcome to my country, make yourself at home in this house, enjoy yourselves
tonight, for we have work to do together in the days ahead.”

As they followed the general inside the house, listening to his praise for them for having killed the Metropolitan Commando
members, Lance started to get that sinking feeling in his stomach again. He couldn’t help thinking
how Hollywood would handle the scene where he announced in a loud voice to everybody, “It wasn’t the leftists who killed
those men. I am the one who killed your brother-in-law.” If he actually did say it, Mike would probably think he was stoned
again.

A dozen women stood about inside the house in sexy, low-cut dresses. They all had black hair and flashing dark eyes, and were
a little tipsy from the drinks a uniformed soldier served them from a tray. Another man in uniform mixed drinks behind a table
covered with a huge white cloth. Bottles of rum and other drinks, bowls of fruit and neat rows of upturned empty glasses stood
on this table. Another table held an array of food dishes.

The general introduced Maria to them, a tall, placid-looking woman getting a little heavy on the beam.

“Maria is the general’s friend,” their officer driver turned interpreter added in English.

It was clear he meant that Maria was off limits to them. None of the other ladies were introduced, and no introductions were
needed. They had ways of making themselves understood.

One spoke English. She said she was Rosita and acted as a go-between and explainer for the others. The officer who had driven
them apparently considered this chore beneath his dignity and spent his time chatting with an—other man there. He beckoned
Mike over and introduced the man as Major Rafael Chavarria, who commanded a “hunter battalion”—troops trained by the U.S.
Army to root out guerrillas. Mike could see that this meeting was not accidental, and in a little while the general joined
them.

Bob Murphy also joined the men in conversation, after he persuaded one of the ladies to release her hold on his dick. Compared
to these Latin lovelies, Eunice back in Vermont was about as attractive as a barn door. Yet, he would be loyal to her. It
wasn’t always easy, but to him it was important.

The others had no such conflict of interest. As they consumed increasing volumes of the smoothly blended rum-and-fruit drinks,
the women grew ever more beautiful and more desirable in their eyes.

Someone put on tapes. Lance, Cesar and Andre, good dancers and able to speak Spanish, took their pick of the women. Joe and
Harvey shuffled about as best they could to the complicated Latin rhythms.

After a while Rosita announced in English, “I’m bored. You know what I do when I’m bored? I take off my clothes.”

She took off her clothes. Not all of them right away, but piece by piece in time to the music.

Then two of the women, who had been dancing with each other for want of a man, started peeling off their dresses. Stark naked,
they touched bare nipples as they danced with each other, then bare bellies, then really got involved up close with each other.

Most of the other women had partially or completely disrobed. But not Maria, the general’s woman. She went and sat in a corner
by herself, fully clothed, sipping on a big drink served to her on a tray by the uniformed soldier.

Lance, his shirt off, was writing the word
salud
in lipstick across the belly of a tall girl with a gorgeous body who wore nothing but high heels. He sent her to belly dance
for Mike Campbell, the general, Bob Murphy and the Salvadoran officers—in the hope she could distract them from their serious
talk.

C
AMPBELL
looked down at the riddled bodies of the three government soldiers their companions brought in. He looked up at the wooded
slopes outside the town.

“Let’s go after those bastards,” he said to Major Rafael Chavarria.

“We’ll call in planes at dawn tomorrow and see if we can pin them down,” the major said evasively.

“Dammit, we know where they are now,” Mike exploded. “Sitting up on that hill laughing at you.”

“It would be a disaster for me to go in after them,” the major explained coldly. “My losses would be too high to be acceptable.”

Mike understood the officer’s thinking. The major was not a coward, he was a career military man. As such, he always had to
make himself look good, regardless of the outcome of the battle or campaign. Even if he succeeded in wiping out this pocket
of guerrillas at the cost of high casualties to his men, back at military headquarters the casualties would be remembered
rather than his victory. Nowadays, no officer, unless he was some kind of military genius at a time of full-scale war, could
live with the
reputation of using his men as cannon fodder. His own soldiers might frag him or, as had happened in El Salvador, switch
sides by joining the guerrillas.

“You have any objection if my team goes after them?” Mike asked.

The major waved his hand at the wooded hills. “Be my guest.”

Mike walked toward the mercs, who were in a huddle apart from the regular soldiers. Mike and they wore regular Salvadoran
army combat fatigues and carried U.S.—supplied weapons. Each man had an M16 assault rifle and Colt semiautomatic pistol, plus
a unique Central American addition—a razor-sharp machete in a long leather scabbard.

“I ain’t messing with this thing,” Bob Murphy said, clumsily handling his machete. “You seen the way the local people use
these things? They’d chop us to pieces.”

“Not me they won’t,” Harvey Waller said, happily swinging the tempered blade in wild arcs all about him.

Lance Hardwick was inclined to agree with Bob’s assessment. “I saw this woman in the town this morning—she was no more than
twenty, a real beauty, and she had this kid of maybe three or four along with her. She was hunkered down and had the kid’s
hand splayed on a tree stump, cutting the kid’s fingernails with this humongous machete, chop, chop, chop, and not gentle,
either—really bringing the blade down. That sweet-looking lady could serve one of us up as a fillet with a couple of turns
of her wrist—you included, Harvey.”

“Been a lot of people thought they could do that to me,” Harvey growled. “I’m still lookin’ for the ones that got away alive.”

Lance was about to kid Harvey until he saw that he was perfectly serious. Lance let it go.

In spite of what they said, all the men brought their machetes with them. In addition, Mike found an old M79 grenade launcher
in good condition and buckled on a belt of 40 mm grenade cartridges. The M79 added five pounds
to his load, not counting ammunition, but Mike liked the weapon enough to put up with that, in spite of its being rendered
almost obsolete by the grenade launchers included on many modern combat rifles. He just liked the feel of the wood stock and
wide-bore short barrel, the way it handled like a squat old-fashioned shotgun that breaks open when the locking latch is pushed
all the way to the right. He peered through the barrel to make sure it was clean, and inserted a grenade cartridge until the
rim of the case contacted the extractor. He snapped the weapon shut and pushed the slide-type safety catch found on regular
side-by-side shotguns.

General Victor Escandell had assigned Chavarria and his hunter battalion to work with Mike’s team in going after Comandante
Clarinero and Sally Poynings. It was obviously Clarinero whom the general wanted. He was openly using Mike as both a goad
and free unofficial advisor to Chavarria.

The general had known a surprising amount about Mad Mike Campbell, and at the party he had laid it on thick to the major about
how cunning and ruthless this American mercenary was known to be. Then he turned to Mike and told him, in the major’s hearing,
that if Mike had any complaints or that if anything stood in the way of his progress, he had only to contact him or one of
his brothers to have things straightened out. With a generous smile, the general informed Major Chavarria that Campbell was
a godsend, that Mike would nail Clarinero for him and rescue the girl, leaving Al the glory to the Salvadoran army. The major
began to look more cheerful when he heard that.

“There’s one thing I want you to clearly understand, Senor Campbell.” The general’s voice boomed above the noise of the music
and raucous laughter of the women. “Our price for helping you is Clarinero’s head.” He chuckled as he watched the naked woman
in high heels tease them with her dance. “On a plate.”

Mike and the team left the. town at a steady run in a single line, with Joe Nolan at point. They had no battle plan—only that
they were not going to let the guerrillas that had seized the town escape unscathed. After slaughtering the town’s garrison
of twelve soldiers, the guerrillas had executed its mayor and another leading citizen before robbing and burning its bank.
They were part of Commandante Clarinero’s fighting force, but none of the townspeople had seen either the comandante or a
blond girl with them. Chavarria’s battalion and the merc team had arrived in trucks. Retaking the town had cost the lives
of three of Chavarria’s men. So far as they could tell, there had been no rebel casualties. Now the guerrillas had melted
back into the forested mountains as quickly as they had appeared.

Mike and the others felt a need to make contact with their adversaries. Once they had engaged them in a firefight, they would
have their feet wet, so to speak. They were all a bit frustrated by their wait in San Salvador.

“Calm them down,” Andre cautioned Mike as they trotted along. “Everyone’s too eager. Someone’s going to get killed.”

Mike acknowledged his mistake with a smile. “I’m as bad as the rest of them. Thanks, Andre, it’s good to have you along.”
He shouted up the line to Joe Nolan at point. “What’s this, the Kentucky Derby? Slow down. You’re going to get your ass handed
to you if you don’t go careful.”

Like Mike himself, Joe didn’t need to be told twice when he was going about something the wrong way. He slowed his pace and
grew more watchful, using hand signals to control the men behind him.

They were moving through small fields in the uplands beyond the edge of the town. Fields had been cleared some distance up
the slope, and it was evergreen forest the rest of the way. They had seen the guerrillas, perhaps fifty to sixty in number,
retreat this way. The path the rebels had taken into the dark trees was broad and well used. Even
though the rebels had moved out of town fast as the government troops advanced, Joe, as he went, scanned for trip wires and
antipersonnel mines they might have had time to set.

Once in the trees, the sinister stillness and darkness of the woods made every one of them more cautious, no matter how eager
they were to draw first blood.

Mike moved up along the line to number three position, so he would be able to see what was happening and give orders while
things were still breaking. He didn’t like going in blind into the forest after the rebels any more than the Salvadoran major
did, but Mike and his men didn’t have time to dance around on the edge of things.

They made their way along the winding path through the tall, bare lower trunks of the evergreens, each like a telephone pole
with an umbrella of leaves at the top. The “Christmas tree” smell was pleasant, the turf was soft and springy beneath their
feet and they enjoyed the coolness and respite from the broiling sun. They kept up a fast clip in spite of their watchfulness
and fear of booby traps, leaving twenty feet between each man in case they got raked by automatic fire. Their week on the
Chesapeake had made them all fit, and living it up in San Salvador hadn’t softened them too much.