Countdown_ The Liberators Part 19

Waggoner rocked his head from side to side a few times, then admitted, "That's true, but we do have some backup plans if there's a delay in something critical."

"What's your backup if we lose a helicopter while loading or enroute?" Stauer asked.

"Bend over and kiss my a.s.s goodbye."

"Good plan," Stauer conceded, sagely. "A better one might be to have Gordo get a line on a replacement."

D-105, 173 miles east of Kota Bharu, Malaysia (South China Sea)

The sea was extremely calm, little more than a gla.s.s sheet, with perhaps a few minor imperfections.

Moving at about four knots, just enough to maintain steerage, the s.h.i.+p was one hundred and seven feet in beam, plus a few insignificant inches. The rotor of Cruz's helicopter was just under seventy feet. Subtract from that one hundred and seven feet another sixteen feet for the double stacked containers lining the gunwales of the Merciful, plus about four more for the s.p.a.ce between the exterior containers and the hull, and it left d.a.m.ned little s.p.a.ce to land a helicopter in. They'd move both helicopters and containers once they were well out at sea, but for now Cruz and Koscius...o...b..th wanted the things hidden from casual observation.

Six feet on a side sounds like a lot, Cruz fumed, until you try to land one of these things in it. Well, at least the b.i.t.c.hing s.h.i.+p's long enough . . . that, and the wind's not bad.

Cruz flew low, his landing gear only a few feet above the water, the better to keep off anyone's radar. To either side of him, in a V formation, the other two Hips, one flown by Borsakov, the other by one of his old comrades, a Cossack by the name of Sirko, likewise flew low. The wash from his main rotor, and theirs, flattened the water below them, pus.h.i.+ng it out into little, rimmed and smooth ponds within the sea. Ahead, the Merciful had normal running lights glowing, normal except for the infrared chemlights, visible only to someone with a night vision device, lining the side of the hull. That was his near recognition signal. His helicopter, too, showed infrared to the s.h.i.+p's bridge, though his was a design feature, not a hastily tacked on and highly temporary modification.

These waters were among the most disputed bodies of sea in the world, with the Peoples Republic of China clas.h.i.+ng with Indonesia over the area northeast of the Natuna Islands, with the Philippines over the Malampaya and Camago gas fields and Scarborough Shoal, and with Vietnam over the waters west of the Spratly Islands, not to mention disputes, sometimes flaring into violence, between Vietnam, the PRC, Taiwan, Malaysia, and the Philippines over the islands, themselves, plus the Paracel Islands. To mention just a few. And then there were the pirates, who generally avoided the contested areas like the plague, preferring to stalk or lie in wait for s.h.i.+ps out in the main sea lanes . . .

The local pirates had proven capable of making entire cargo s.h.i.+ps disappear from public view under new names and paint schemes. Yachts were easier.

This yacht, about the size of The Drunken b.a.s.t.a.r.d, though narrower in beam, had been simplicity itself to rename and repaint. The pirates had not, however, then sold it. It was too innocent looking, too quiet in operation, above all too fast to let go. Instead, once having disposed of the owner, his family, and their crew, the pirates had kept it, the better to advance their own operations.

Tonight the pirates planned a fairly low key operation. They intended to board the container s.h.i.+p they'd tracked since it left Manila, seize the petty cash in the s.h.i.+p's safe, and leave. They really weren't interested in cargo or holding the crew for ransom; their scouts at the docks who had seen the crew reported that it was, by and large, American. Seizing an American s.h.i.+p in waters where the U.S. Navy frequently operated was dangerous enough; taking the crew hostage was up there with swimming in shark infested waters with chunks of meat tied to one's ankles for sheer risk factor.

Why this should be the one area that the Americans were willing to be forceful over as a matter of course, the pirates didn't know, not being devotees of domestic American politics. It was, in fact, that even a less than entirely successful hostage rescue proved a plus to presidential job approval rating, and the more a plus the more pirates were killed, while the less so as some were saved for trial.

The s.h.i.+p ahead, with the white painted gantry moved almost all the way back to the superstructure, was barely moving. The yacht, on the other hand, was moving and closing the distance between them quickly. At a range of about a kilometer, the pirate skipper lifted a night scope to his right eye. This was a single intensifier version, once intended for mounting on a light anti-tank weapon.

"That's odd," said the pirate. He pulled the scope away from his eye, closed that eye, and looked again. Nope, just the running lights. He put the scope back to his eye. But there are a dozen other lights that pop up in the scope. And what the h.e.l.l's that sound?

The skipper turned the scope toward the sound and spotted the helicopters, three of them in formation, rotoring in.

"Turn around!" he shouted to the helmsman. "It's a trap!"

Borsakov called Cruz on the radio. "There's a boat out there, maybe eighty or ninety feet long. It's turning around and running like h.e.l.l. What do you think it is, Mike? Police? Somebody's navy?"

"We saw it," said Kosciusko from the Merciful's bridge. "I even readied a party in case it was pirates. Probably not navy or police or they wouldn't be running. Might have been a case of mistaken ident.i.ty."

"Might have," Cruz agreed. "No matter, Merciful, I'll be on station, ready to land in about forty seconds."

"Ground guides are on station and waiting, Mike," Kosciusko replied. "Your spot is marked as Alpha in IR chemlights."

The helicopter pa.s.sed above the superstructure and gantry, the turbulence caused by them, even at the current low speeds, causing it to shudder and buck. Cruz saw the letter "A" outlined with, he guessed, about twenty-five or thirty chemlights. Still other lights marked the inside edges of the rows of containers lining both sides, rear, and front of the landing area. He didn't bother counting the lights as he was much too busy lining his helicopter up.

Russian helicopters tended to vibrate a bit more than western ones. Thus, Cruz's feet were encased in reverse stirrups to hold them to the pedals. He moved these up and down, slightly, to control the speed of the tail rotor and thus his orientation with respect to the s.h.i.+p. He pushed the cyclic, the control stick, forward, moving his Hip a few meters in that direction, and then pulled it back to stop motion. Satisfied with that, his left hand played with the pitch control, changing the pitch of the main rotor and bringing the bird down several feet.

A quick glance left and right told him that his was going to clear the containers easily enough. He again lowered himself several feet.

At that point, however, Cruz encountered a somewhat more serious surface effect than he was used to. Naturally, helicopter pilots were used to surface effect; they encountered it every time they landed and took off. Normally, however, the air had free means of escape to all sides. In this case, the containers created an open topped box that allowed less air than usual to escape to the sides, hence forced more of the air than usual upward, largely negating the changes in pitch Cruz made.

The helicopter began to shake alarmingly at the violent updraft. Ugh! Suckage! They never covered this at Kremenchug. With a nervous sigh, Cruz eased the collective still further, but gently, gently. This had the unlooked for effect of reducing the updraft, causing the chopper to lurch downward. Cruz's heart jumped into his mouth. f.u.c.k!

"Artur," he called over the radio, "this is trickier than we planned. The containers have created a sort of up-facing tunnel. You still disperse air forward and back, but there is more of an updraft. Watch out for that and watch your pitch."

"Roger, Mike," came the answer. "I ran into something like this in a draw in Afghanistan a long time ago. Be really careful to keep level; any lateral variation can potentially spill all the air out one side and send you cras.h.i.+ng into the other."

"Roger," Cruz replied, with a calm he absolutely did not feel. Double f.u.c.k. An inch at a time it will have to be.

Again Cruz nudged the collective and again the Hip dropped until the updraft cancelled out the reduction in effective power. Again . . . again . . . again . . . again . . .

And then the helicopter was sitting on the flight deck, rocking up and down. Mike breathed a sigh of relief and began the shutdown cycle.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within."

-Patricia de Lille, South African Politician, quoting Cicero, with regards to a corrupt arms deal

D-103, Durban, South Africa

They came to the port in fifty-three foot s.h.i.+pping containers; the vehicles within driven up on log ramps to reduce the s.p.a.ce taken up inside, and with commercial boxes at each end to cover against the chance of a casual inspection. Additional containers had nothing each but three turrets mounting 90mm guns inside. A further two contained ammunition, one with a mix of anti-tank and anti-personnel, the other with a hefty load of TP, or training practice, and a small amount of high explosive. Not a one of the containers was properly and accurately marked.

Victor, Dov, Viljoen, and Dumi were all present for the loading. Only Victor planned on leaving the s.h.i.+p before its departure. The others, billeted in what would nominally have been crew's quarters and in containers, would stay aboard through the rebuild.

"I'm almost surprised you could move so quickly," said Victor.

"Went downtown," Viljoen replied. "Found a bunch of unemployed black fellahs, offered them a thousand Rand apiece for four day's work. Course, it was more complex than that. Had to get them all uniforms and spend a half a day teaching them to at least look semi-military. And Dumi and I did all the driving. Paid the same friend of ours in the Ammunition Corps that provided the ammunition to arrange the transportation."

"There's nothing that isn't for sale here," Dumi added.

"Nothing that isn't for sale with your people in charge," Viljoen said, smiling.

Dumisani answered seriously, though his eyes said he was joking, "Well . . . I think yours were actually the better thieves, but mine have to work so much harder to catch up."

Victor shook his head. Bad these people might be. Worse than Russia? Not a chance. "And your people?" he asked of Dov.

"They're inside the s.h.i.+p and won't come out until we're in international waters. But they're ready and have all the tools and spares needed for the job."

"Can they do it in the twenty-one sailing days to Guyana?"

"Should be able to," the Israeli answered. "a.s.suming decent-"

Viljoen saw a girl-well, no, not just a girl, this one was clearly a woman-emerging from the hatchway at the base of the superstructure. She walked over to stand next to Dov, though she seemed to be trying not to stand too close to him. She was olive skinned, tall, slender, and extraordinarily pretty; high cheekboned, delicate chinned, with full lips, and with exceptionally large brown eyes. Her long, wavy hair-brown with traces of red-flooded over her shoulders and down her back. Even though he was gay, he still had to notice: beautiful was still beautiful, whatever one's s.e.xual orientation.

"Lana," Dov acknowledged, before making introductions all around. Rather than Israeli, the woman's accent sounded pure Cape English. "Lana's our senior optics . . . person. She's originally from here; Cape Town, wasn't it, Lana?"

"Cape Town, yes," Lana Mendes answered. "Then Israel, then the Army."

"What did you do in the Army, Boeremeisie?" Dumisani asked. The term didn't precisely fit Lana; she was neither a Boer nor a farm girl. But the Zulu had meant it well and so she took it. More importantly, Lana had grown up with a Bantu nanny. The Zulu's voice and accent represented something very close to ultimate security and comfort at a level well below the conscious.

"Tank driving and gunnery instructor," she said "Oh, really?" Bantu and Boer asked, at the same time.

D-102, San Antonio, Texas

Both Cazz and Reilly had remained behind since it was their job to recruit, personally, the largest two contingents, the light armored and amphibious infantry companies. Unsurprisingly, they'd each gone immediately for a first sergeant, starting with the best they had known-both of whom had retired as sergeants major-and then working down from there. Rather, Cazz worked down from there. Reilly's first choice had jumped at the chance. Cazz had to strike off two names from his list before settling on the third. Admittedly, this may have been just as well as a former Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps was perhaps a bit too noticeable a personage for what was still, hopefully, a clandestine mission.

Oddly enough, both non-coms were former Marines, since Reilly's choice, Roger George, had spent four years in the Corps, three of them in Southeast Asia, as an infantryman. He'd then gotten out and discovered that civilian life, after the excitement of combat, left much to be desired. The Marines being full at the time, and the Army recruiting system plagued by idiocy on an heroic level, then Corporal George had been enlisted into the Army Band, as a piccolo player. That had lasted about four months before he put in for a transfer to First Ranger Battalion at Hunter Army Airfield, in Savannah.

He knew Reilly from approximately the latter's seventh day in the Army, when then Private Reilly had been herded from Fort Polk's replacement detachment to a training company on Fort Polk's South Fort. George had been Reilly's junior drill sergeant through basic combat training.

In any case, Sergeant Major (Retired) and First Sergeant, pro tem, George and Sergeant Major (Retired) and First Sergeant, pro tem, Webster, got along famously. So had they in Vietnam, as a matter of fact, when they'd been members of Second Platoon, B Company, Fifth Marines.

It was truly a small world, and smaller still within the military.

Reilly and Cazz got along. Reilly and Webster got along. Cazz and George got along. But.

"We haven't had any personnel problems or interpersonal issues because n.o.body's really been collected and s.h.i.+pped onward yet," said Webster. George nodded knowingly on the other side of the table.

"It's gonna be ugly," Cazz added. "With A Company entirely Army-excepting only you"-he inclined his head toward George-"and B Company entirely Marine, I'd expect all kinds of hate and discontent down in the Alpha Alpha. And then when we board s.h.i.+p? Ugh."

"I'm not so sure," Reilly replied. "Especially about aboard s.h.i.+p, where there'll be all kinds of air and naval types for the Army and Marine infantry to get together in peace, love, and harmony and hate jointly. And then, too, we're all f.u.c.king old, gentlemen. Too much past that young and full of come and essentially brain dead status of our misguided and misspent youths. The youngest man in B Company will be thirty-seven; the youngest in A Company thirty-nine. That's getting to be a little old for interservice rivalry. In any case, First Sergeants, pro tem, it's going to be your job to squash any of that s.h.i.+t within your companies."

"Easy say, boss," said George.

"But maybe hard do," finished Webster. "Once a misguided child too often means always a misguided child, with the emphasis on 'child.'"

"Yeah, well, that's why both of you are going down with the first major lift, here to Houston, to Port of Spain, to Georgetown, departing tomorrow morning at 10:24."

"You know," said George, "you really ought to keep Webster here to help with transportation. I can handle the Army and Marines well enough until we hit the two hundred man point."

"No," said Cazz and Reilly together. Reilly added, "The critical ma.s.s, so to speak, will a.s.semble there. So there you two will be. Cazz and I can handle trans. s.h.i.+t; with colonels commanding companies and former divisional sergeants major playing first s.h.i.+rts, it's not as if we aren't the most grossly overled military group outside of the Army of Andorra."

"Andorra?" Cazz asked.

Smiling, Reilly replied, "Just reserve officers, no enlisted men or non-coms. They haven't fought anybody in about seven hundred years. Poor babies, too, what with having to carry their own luggage and all." That last was said with a sneer.

"You still can't tell us the mission?" Webster asked.

Cazz took the question, "Not until Stauer says okay, Top. Sorry. I think he'll tell you in Brazil, and give you a chance to opt out if you don't like it."

"That's something, I suppose."

"Oh, and Top," Reilly said, quite certain that George would never back out, "make sure they all know the song, old hands and newbies, alike, before I get there."

George shook his head but half-sang, "Von Panzergrenadieren, Panzergrenadieren uberrannt."

"Hey, I wanna know that one," Webster said, perking up.

D-102, Georgetown, Guyana