Countdown_ The Liberators Part 26

Chin had a sudden vision of a patrol boat sprouting an airplane's tail at the bow and laughed aloud. "Well we've got to have a decision soon, Skipper. My men and women are about done until we know what kind of gun goes forward. If we delay the repairs much longer then we might not be ready in time."

Kosciusko nodded. "I know. What do you suggest?"

Chin, though a sailor, had been a member of the People's Liberation Army Navy. Thus, he was more up to speed on ground systems than most sailors would have been. "Take the BMP-3F turret. We don't, after all, absolutely have to use the main gun. It's still got the 30mm cannon and the missiles. And if we have to use the main gun, probably just the once, it would only be in life or death circ.u.mstances. In that case, who cares about the boat?"

"I think he's right, Ed," Cruz said.

Kosciusko thought about it, thought about the pressing time schedule, and said, "All right. I'll send the requisition to Victor and Gordo, and tell Stauer. He left the decision up to us, anyway, but he might like to know."

"I'll need precise dimensions on that turret," Chin said, just before turning to leave. "With those, I can do the necessary mods even before we get it."

At the ladder leading down, Chin turned around again. "I started on patrol boats, you know, Skipper. I commanded a P-6 before they gave mine away to Tanzania. Love the things."

Kosciusko raised one eyebrow, thinking, Note to Stauer . . .

D-80, Maintenance Area-Base Camp, Amazonia, Brazil

"I love it when a plan comes together," Stauer said, watching the turret of an Eland as it was gently lowered down onto the body under the supervision of the two South Africans, Viljoen and Dumisani. Reilly likewise watched, one of the Israelis by his side. The rest of the Israeli crew was still anch.o.r.ed at Manaus, doing last minute touch ups while awaiting the arrival of Merciful so they could transfer over the cars that were not to land here. Reilly was speaking to the Israeli, the woman, Lana, softly enough that Stauer couldn't make out what was said. One thing I'm sure of, though; hot as the woman may be, Reilly wants her for one thing and one thing only, training his troops on the armored cars. Single minded, fanatical b.a.s.t.a.r.d!

Stauer then gave a rueful grin, noticed by no one, as he considered, And what have you done with Phillie, then, that's so very different?

No, that was different, he corrected himself. I pushed Phillie aside-temporarily!-because I couldn't be seen having favorites or having access to a woman when none of the other boys did. To Reilly, though, that Israeli girl doesn't even exist as a woman as long as she has a "higher and better use," namely prepping his troops to fight. Stauer looked over at Lana again and mentally added, The man is sick!

But then, in shape she's a lot like Phillie . . . except Phillie has a better rack. And-Stauer mentally sighed-I find that I'm missing her. Maybe I need a chat with the Doc . . . a prescription or something.

Contrary to Stauer's opinion, Reilly was by no means unaware of the feminine charms of the tall, slender Israeli standing next to him. He simply compartmentalized well, even while he made an entry in his personal memory bank: Israeli girl with high cheekbones and cute, if not large, t.i.ts; to lay, as soon as possible after the mission.

Even while he made that little entry in his mind, his mouth was asking, "What will the laser rangefinder do for effective range?"

Lana had taken an instant liking to the man and she knew exactly why. Not that she didn't know, in the way all women know, that he'd just made a mental note: Israeli girl with high cheekbones and cute, if not large, t.i.ts; to lay . . .

But she was obviously something more to Reilly, that thing she'd been mostly denied when she'd been with the Israeli Army. He thinks of me first and foremost as a soldier! How great is that?

She chewed at her lower lip a moment before answering, "Depends, sir. It's a low velocity gun any way you look at it, firing a high cross-section, fin-stabilized sh.e.l.l. High crossing winds . . . moving target . . . anything like that and it's a matter of luck and training more than the gun or the fire control."

"Training's going to be a problem," Reilly said. "I don't have and won't get permission to fire major rounds before we move out. And I doubt the TP ammunition we're getting is really exactly the same."

"It isn't," Lana agreed, "but that's not a problem. Our reputation depends on how our products do in combat, when it counts. A lot of armies that have these things they can't afford to fire much. So each car comes with three sub-caliber devices, basically modified expended sh.e.l.l casings filled with concrete, and with a redundant, bore-sighted spotting rifle from the old 105mm recoilless inside. I made sure all twenty-seven of the ones that come with the rebuilds were loaded to come here, to your base camp. Along with about thirty thousand rounds of .50 spotting. We can train to shoot."

I think I'm in love, Reilly thought. Okay, not really. "You mean 106, don't you?"

"No," she replied, very definitely. "You called it that, to distinguish it from its failed predecessor, but it was 105mm all the same."

"Really?" l.u.s.t, anyway.

Alone in her tent, lying on the unmattressed folding cot, wearing sweaty battle dress, Phillie was miserable, And it's not just because I'm h.o.r.n.y. But I never even see Wes, except at a distance. Or in the occasional meeting. Or . . .

Her moping was interrupted by a knock on the tent pole. It didn't resound, exactly, but she'd gotten used to the rather different sounds of a lonely jungle camp as compared to the big bright city and houses with doors that reverberated like drums.

"Nurse Potter?" Sergeant Coffee asked. "Are you decent?"

I'm actually pretty d.a.m.ned good, she thought, not that anyone's tried me lately. "Here, Sergeant Coffee. I'm dressed."

Coffee stuck his large, squared-off head inside the tent flap. "Message from the commander, Nurse Potter. He needs a medical person at the docks and Dr. Joseph is busy with setting a bone from B Company. Somebody from one of the LCM crews must be hurt."

"Do you know who got hurt?" she asked. "How bad is it?"

"No, Ma'am, I don't know"-Coffee had gotten much more polite since dumping Phillie in the mud- "but if myself or one of my apes would have done the trick, I'm sure Colonel Stauer wouldn't have asked for you."

Phillie arose from her cot and, bending, grabbed the medical kit bag underneath.

Coffee grimaced. Ooo, that's nice.

"Sergeant Coffee," she said, straightening up, "if you would be so kind would you ask Sergeant Island to hold some lunch for me?"

"Be happy to, ma'am," Coffee replied as he ducked his head out of the tent. "By the way, the colonel's ATV is outside. You can take that."

"Wouldn't know how to drive it, Sergeant Coffee. And the dock's not far."

There was no one dockside or on the sole landing craft tied up to it. Phillie supposed the other two were downstream, either at Manaus or bringing another load of supplies in. She swung a long leg over the sheer hull and climbed down, calling out, "Is anyone aboard." More softly she muttered, "If this is some kind of joke . . . "

A strained sounding Wes' voice called back, "Over here, Phillie." She looked around to the stern, from whence came his voice, and began to walk across the ribbed deck. Where the cargo deck ended there was a steel wall, mostly blank except for one ladder inset into it. She elbowed her bag behind her and climbed up. As her head arose over the wall, she saw another deck, mostly flat, with a upright steel housing and an open hatch in front of that. "Down here," Wes called again. His voice sounded urgent, as if the emergency was dire indeed.

She began to scramble down, first swinging her leg until it connected with another ladder. Halfway down, with her head and torso still above deck level, she felt strong hands on her hips lifting her away from the ladder. Thereafter, she sank into the engine housing so quickly she could barely register a surprised "O."

Her feet touched the metal deck below and Phillie felt herself spun around bodily. One large hand slithered up her back, unhooking her bra with practiced ease, even while another frantically undid the b.u.t.tons on front of her battle dress jacket. She was about to scream "rape" when a quick sniff told her nose, "Stauer."

The latter hand pushed her T-s.h.i.+rt and bra up and out of the way, even while the other one did something overhead that caused a clang that was shocking inside the close confines of the oil-smelling engine room.

Both hands then struggled with the b.u.t.tons of her trousers before hooking thumbs in them and her panties and pus.h.i.+ng downward. Phillie kicked to try to get the trousers off completely but, as they were bloused into her boots, she failed and remained with her ankles bound together by trousers.

She felt herself picked up again, this time by her bare b.u.t.tocks. She pulled her legs up and rested them on the forearms that held her. When she was released again, it was to rest her bare skin on the cold, cold block of a very large diesel engine. She squealed at the shock.

"Shhhh," whispered Stauer into her ear as he gently stroked her smooth flanks. "Shhhh. Doctor's orders."

Doc Joseph and Sergeant Coffee watched the boat from the jungle nearest the river. They really couldn't tell if the boat's gentle rocking was from the current, from Phillie boarding, or from her being boarded. It didn't really matter anyway.

Coffee pulled a pack of cigarettes out of one corner and held them out, offering one to the doctor. Joseph declined at first then said, "Ah, what the f.u.c.k. Gimme."

He took the cigarette and then puffed it alight in the flame from Coffee's proffered lighter. He coughed a couple of times, then his lungs settled into the smoke.

"You really wrote him a prescription?" Coffee asked, just before lighting his own cancer stick.

"Nope," Joseph said. "I wrote her one, and told him to deliver it."

Coffee snickered. "You don't think it will be a problem with the boys, the colonel having his honey to . . . ummm . . . to hand?"

Joseph shook his head. "No, not if they're reasonably discreet. The troops won't care as long as Stauer doesn't play favorites and doesn't flaunt that he's dipping his wick when the boys can't."

Coffee rocked his smoke-wreathed head from side to side before agreeing, "Yeah . . . probably."

A hundred meters away the landing craft continued its gentle rocking, waves forming from the current as it pa.s.sed around the stern.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.

Of all branches of military science, military sketching and reconnaissance is perhaps the most practical.

-Lieutenant Colonel A.F. Mockler-Ferryman, RMC Sandhurst, 1908

D-80, Beach Green Two (tentative), west of Bandar Qa.s.sim, Ophir

Waves washed up on the low tide beach, just west of the city that was named-so local legends said-for its founder's camel. All the way out, as far as the eye could see, there wasn't a rock bigger than two fists held together. The slope was smooth and gentle. A Marine would have had an o.r.g.a.s.m, just looking at it.

The city to the east had grown tenfold in recent years, the result of its original tribesmen, scattered all over what had once been the country, returning to the safety and security of their own tribe. For all that it now housed nearly half a million people, it was still a low-built city of mostly mud brick with wide swaths of tent towns.h.i.+ps around it. Animals still walked and grazed in the streets, to the extent there was much of anything to graze from. Mostly, the streets were just mud and garbage and general filth.

At the center of the northern edge of the city, where road and building met sea, was a double port mildly reminiscent of old Carthage in that it had a major harbor area partly enclosed by jetty, and a small one almost completely enclosed that led off from the major one. To both sides were beaches. Though the sand of the beaches was smooth, generally, just behind them was a series of rough wadis which cut the area of the beaches into segments as little as one hundred feet across. This was common in the area. The wadis presented both difficulties and opportunities. They were difficulties in that they would tend to disorganize and separate any attacker doing a landing and could provide good cover for any defender, opportunities in that if one were to land, and were it not defended, one could take cover quite quickly from casual observation. At least from the ground. Air was another story entirely.

"It's a pity," said Buckwheat Fulton to Wahab, as they walked along the s.h.i.+ngle, stopping occasionally to take a digital photo, "that this isn't where we're intending to land the major force. It's the best beach I've seen. Even better than Green One, to the west of here." The camera had an integral GPS, Global Positioning System, to it, so there'd be no doubts about where any given picture related to.

Wahab agreed, saying, "You know more about such things than I do, but even I can see the advantages of the gentle rise of the sands. That said," he pointed with his chin toward the almost rectangular port-it was a rectangle but with one corner nipped off, "they may have something to say about that."

Since returning home, Wahab had barely had time to see his wife and children. He and Fulton had arrived, briefed Khalid, spent a single night at Wahab's house, and then headed north. Still, one night is better than no nights. I missed her . . . and ours.

He turned his attention back to the problem at hand, that, and the relative competence of the black American noncom and the black African officer. I don't think Buckwheat's any smarter than I am. And I've had schooling, within his own country's armed forces, that is way above anything he should have had. And still he knows more about it than I do. I wonder why that is. Self study? Maybe. We've never been so good, this side of the ocean, at worrying about what is to come or preparing for it. But some of us must have and I still don't know anyone here who understands military operations as well. And there's no b.l.o.o.d.y racial component to it because this man is black, too.

He asked Buckwheat about it.

"Osmosis," the American replied, simply. "All my adult life I was surrounded by people who studied these things and did them. You just pick it up, without even being aware that you are picking it up."

"Oh." Then Wahab had a still odder thought. I could pin general's insignia on this man, put him in charge of our "army," and we would be unbeatable on this continent.

Fulton looked over toward where Wahab's chin had pointed. They'd already looked at the recognizable pirate s.h.i.+ps, an easy dozen of them, in the smaller, better protected, and almost rectangular harbor. Guards, who seemed unusually alert and well disciplined, walked the docks, the fences, and the jetties of the harbor. As near as Buckwheat and Wahab could tell there were nearly twelve hundred such full time warriors in the town, along with tens of thousands of part timers who might well show up to fight in a pinch. Could Stauer's force take them? Who the h.e.l.l wanted to pay the price finding out?

In reply, Fulton said, "The boats are toast if we want them to be." He mused for a moment, then added, "Of course, we do want them to be." White teeth shone bright in a black face, "And they will be. But, depending on how we go about that, it will make many loud noises which would alert people that we're coming. Or here. So we'll take them out but probably only after we're landed elsewhere and moving. Well after. And we absolutely don't want to tangle with that much tribal infantry. That's why"-he chinned towards the bay-"Biggus d.i.c.kus Thornton has the job of sinking the boats and we're not planning on landing a single man near here."

"On which note," Wahab said, "we'd better find another beach."

Buckwheat nodded agreement but said, "Not west of here. Green One is fine for a small team, say, one to take out the stuff on the airfield, not so good for a large. The mountains along the coast could make getting very far off the beach a serious problem. Also it's too long a drive from Objective One."

"South, then," Wahab agreed. "The eastern coast. North of Bandar Cisman, maybe." The two remounted their automobile. Oddly enough, while everyone back at base in Brazil was making do with ATVs and such, the recon and intelligence party had a Hummer, gift of a charity with more money than brains, which gift had been duly stolen and put on the market, sans engine hood and winds.h.i.+eld. Wahab had picked it up for a fair price.

Since purchase, the Hummer had been further modified, this time by the guards Wahab had hired in the town. One of those three stood up in the back of the Hummer, manning a machine gun, while the other two rode the back seat, rifles clutched in their hands. The guards were actually from a sub-clan of the Habar Afaan tribe. Even so, they seemed diligent. Then again, why not? It wasn't as if they knew why Fulton and Wahab were taking pictures, nor even why they'd stopped at certain villages, taking photos of nearly everyone present and providing copies from a color printer that rode the back of the Hummer, taking its juice from the battery.

The beach and the town lay far to the northwest, after a long day's kidney-pounding drive. The sun was sinking in the west behind sand dunes. The Hummer, Wahab driving, had been parked in low ground between three dunes. While one guard, with the machine gun, lay atop the highest of those, scanning the horizon for threats, another pitched a tarp with one edge tied to the Hummer and the other staked to the sand. He used a shovel rather than a mallet, digging holes and burying crossed stakes, with the lead ropes attached, within them. The third guard took care of cooking, a simple meal of azuki beans with a small side of goat. Spiced tea brewed on the fire, next to the pot holding the beans. It gave off the scent of cinnamon and cardamom.

While the guards busied themselves with housekeeping, and Buckwheat fiddled with a small satellite dish mounted on the ground behind the Hummer, Wahab-rifle in hand-watched the guards. Paranoia, in this part of the world, was only good sense unless one was surrounded by close kin.

"What you do?" asked the guard squatting over the fire of Fulton.

"Getting ready to send the pictures we took back to my magazine," Fulton replied. "Anything happens to us, at least they'll have a part of a story."

"Nothing happen," the guard a.s.sured Buckwheat. "Here . . . now . . . we have peace. Even stinking, goat-f.u.c.king Marehan no bother us anymore."

"Peace is good," Fulton answered, noncommittally. Even so he looked casually at Wahab. Yes, his comrade of the day and hour had heard. No, if he took any offense he didn't show it. Indeed, he was smiling. Got to love a cool comrade.

Fulton left the dish for a moment, walking the couple of steps to the computer and checking reception.

"Where you learn do that?" the cook asked.

"Journalism school," Buckwheat lied. At SWC at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, back when Bronze Bruce was still on the other side of the street.

"Wish I could learn," the cook said, suggestively.

"Tell you what; when we finish my photo shoot I'll show you. Fair enough?"