CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Dice are rolling; the knives are out.

Would-be presidents are all around.

I don’t say they mean harm,

but they’d each give an arm

To see us six feet underground.

—Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, Evita

Miraflores Palace, Caracas, Venezuela

“Stop that column,” Chavez demanded, throwing a pen at the map hanging on the wall. “Stop it now! I want every available aircraft dedicated to bombing that armor into scrap!” Hugo was in a fine fury, nor was it made any better by the knowledge that he had ordered the brigade at Kaieteur out from its safe fastness to where it could barely be supported and was, in fact, routed.

And, given the example of the late chief of intelligence, thought the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General Ortiz, I really don’t want to be the one to remind him. Hugo’s getting progressively less reasonable. Ortiz was young looking and fit, with all of his hair and all of that native black. In his dress blues, gold-trimmed and bemedalled, he was a magnificent sight. Though, if Chavez thought so, he hid that opinion rather well.

Ortiz had a sudden thought. Funny; the army’s treated Chavez with kid gloves ever since the day it realized he might just someday end up as president, which was predictably going to become the office of dictator. I doubt he’s ever had someone really disagree with him, much less chew his ass, in thirty years or more.

Okay, so what are my options? I can bend over, order the useless strikes he wants. Then, when they fail—as they will fail; we aren’t worth a flying fuck at bombing moving targets and we don’t have the precision guided ordnance to make up for our lack—hehave my head.

Or, maybe, I can be honest with him and insist we go after the bridge. He’ll overrule me; we’ll fail; and then he’ll have my head.

Or, and this is so risky it makes me shudder, I can throw a screaming shitfit at him, shock him silly, we go after the bridge and take it down, and that stops the column. Of, course, that might cost me my head, too, but it’s my best chance and our best chance.

By background Ortiz was a fighter pilot. Neither cowardice nor indecision are notable in the breed, not in any air force worth its salt.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

Ortiz stood so decisively that even Chavez shut up. Good sign. He slammed his fist to the huge conference table and said, “No! No, Mr. President, we are not going after the column any more than it takes to slow it down. We’re going after the bridge over the Essequibo that crosses Awartun Island. That is our only chance to save this campaign.”

For a few moments, Chavez’s mouth worked like a fish out of water. No one has spoken to me like that in …I can’t remember how long. Do I shoot him for insubordination, or …

“Make your case, General,” Chavez said. “But make it quick; there isn’t much time.”

Ortiz forced away the smile he felt growing on his face. Huh; so it’s going to work.

“Mr. President,” the general said, forcing earnestness and sincerity into his face and his words, “we’re already on it. The first flight of Sukhois went after the armored column on the south side of the Potaro. They are still hitting them. They were diverted from a strike on Ciudad Guyana, so what they have for weapons is suboptimal. Frankly, we don’t have the optimal weapons.

“I’ve sent the next flight also to intercept the enemy armor. They won’t do any more good than the first one did. Everything after that needs to be carrying high explosive and a few anti-radiation missiles And all of that ordnance needs to go onto the bridge until it comes down.

“Our only chance of buying the paratroop brigade at Cheddi Jagan airport enough time to prepare to defend is dropping that bridge.”

Ortiz felt his heart sink as Chavez shook his head. As quickly as it sank, it arose still more rapidly when the president said, “Do it. And I hope you know what you’re risking.”

Ortiz drew himself up with a dignity the mere uniform couldn’t hope to match. “Mr. President,” he said, “my youngest son will be leading the first mission to go after the bridge.”

I gambled, thought Hugo Chavez, lying in bed next to his latest not-very-pretty hence not-damaging-to-the-ego mistress. I gambled, and it looks like I’m going to lose. Fucking gringo bastards.

The sound of the crowd outside the palace hardly ever ended now. More than once Chavez had considered having them dispersed by any means reasonably necessary. Each time he’d refrained. They were his people, after all. They were the reason he’d taken power in the first place.

My people as long as I’m their leader. How long is that going to last? Imports are cut off, except by truck from Brazil. I can’t feed a country by truck; at least I can’t feed this one. No goods in the shops. Plenty for sale on the black market, though, at prices almost nobody can afford. I considered passing out a lot more money, until the economists—even the properly Marxist ones—pointed out that doubling the money supply would just double the price of goods.

And all the news from the war is bad. A corner of Ciudad Guayana still in enemy hands and the army is helpless to pry them out of it. A whole brigade of the Fifth Division a shattered wreck, trying to escape back to Kaieteur in little penny packets through the jungle.

Can’t even tell the people it was a pyrrhic victory for the enemy, either, since that enemy will demonstrate they didn’t actually suffer much when they kick our asses at Cheddi Jagan Airport, which I suspect they will.

Can I just declare peace and leave Guyana? Not a chance. “My people” will be dancing under my hanging, tongue-protruding, strangled corpse within the day. And it wouldn’t solve the problem, anyway. My ports will still be mined, and the enemy will have no reason to tell us where the mines are, if they even know.

Chavez rolled over, facing the window toward the courtyard and, incidentally, facing away from his paramour. The sound was louder in that posture, causing him to turn the opposite way, facing her.

Maybe the Cubans can clear the mines and save us. This is so not working out the way it was supposed to.

International Waters,

Three Hundred and Twenty Miles Northwest of Aruba

If there was such a thing as the Platonic ideal of “ship-shape and Bristol fashion,” the Sonya Class minesweeper would have been the Platonic ideal of its opposite.

The minesweeper didn’t have a name. The hull number, and it possessed one, had long since fallen off the wooden hull in a drizzle of paint flecks. Only the grace of God—not that Cuban sailors were allowed to profess belief in God, of course—kept the water out. Certainly the quicky paint job they’d plashed on for the benefit of the CNN cameras wouldn’t.

The engines …they were another story. There’d been no time to overhaul those, though Cuba, since the rise of the Castros, had made keeping ancient motors running something of an art. They strained, coughing great clouds of diesel to the heavens as the entire assembly of parts floating in loose formation made its maximum eight knots southward. It could possibly have managed eleven—the condition of the engines ruled out its specification speed of fourteen—but for the need to tow the Yevgenya Class. That boat was, if that were possible, in worse shape still.

On the bridge, gazing forward, stood the captain, a Castro by name but no relation to the ruling clan. And what will happen to us if a storm comes up, he thought, only the God we’re not supposed to believe in knows. He’s not telling, but I’m pretty sure we drown. Hell, the only thing the navy has that even looks seaworthy is that replica of the Granma they haul out for parades.

Still, if she’ll only hold together for another forty hours, we’ll be close enough to Aruba to defect. Not as good as defecting to the United States, of course, but a damned sight better than staying in Crown Prince Raul Castro’s kingdom of the starving.

I wonder how many of the crew will willingly join me. About two thirds, I think. The rest, if they find out what I have in mind, will shoot me in the head and pitch my body over the side for the sharks. Even at that, I was lucky to convince higher command that this was such a suicide mission that only unmarried men should be taken.

The boat’s chief maintenance officer—in a crew of a mere forty-three, he was, strictly speaking, the only maintenance officer—ahemed from behind. “Captain Castro, I’ve got the forward twin 30mm up. The rear 25mm is hopeless.”

“No matter, we don’t have much ammunition for it anyway,” the boat’s master replied. “The sonar?”

The maintenance officer’s head rocked from side to side. “Won’t be worth a shit for at least another day, sir. Maybe two. Assuming I can get it working at all.”

“All right,” the captain said. “We have that much time, anyway.”

South of Cheddi Jagan Airport, Guyana

None of the Sukhois landed at the airport. The strip could take them well enough, but ordnance, fuel, and the ground crews were all back around Caracas. Still, in a fairly continuous stream, the distinctive aircraft each made at least one pass, after dropping their ordnance on the gringos’ heads. This was done at Ortiz’s order, despite the possibility of being lazed to destruction, in order to buck up the moral of the men and women frantically digging in, in a long arc running from Lana, Guyana, on the Essequibo, east-southeast toward Saint Cuthberts. Most of the paratrooper brigade’s strength didn’t stretch so far, however, being concentrated on the two roads that ran south from the airport, paralleling each other.

Every now and again a Tucano would fly overhead, dipping its wings in turn. There wasn’t much fuel at the airport for them, nor was there much ordnance to carry, but what they could do, their pilots were determined to do.

A Sukhoi streaked above, causing Arrivillaga to wince at the sonic boom—it flew quite low—even as he muttered, “Don’t like the flyboys, never did, but the gringos would have been on us already if not for them.”

“What was that, Mao?” Larralde asked, heaving a shovelful of dirt from the fighting position they took turns excavating.

“Just that we’re lucky,” the sergeant major replied. “And that the gringos should have been on us by now.” And, though I won’t say it, that we’re box of rocks stupid for not considering the possibility they might be and digging in starting as soon as we took this place. But, then, we already knew we were stupid or we’d not have made a career of the army, right?

Larralde tossed another shovelful out of the hole. “Dumb as dirt of us not to start doing this about an hour after we arrived.” He didn’t quite understand the odd look his senior noncommissioned officer gave him in reply.

Mao saw a column of troops, maybe forty of them, bearing saws, picks, and shovels, marching down the asphalt road the eastern side of which it was Larralde’s company’s job to defend. Four of them were rolling barrels ahead of them. Another led a donkey pulling a small, light cart.

“Engineers are here, sir. Up out of the hole and let me dig, while you, for a refreshing change, go do an officer’s job.”

Larralde stabbed the shovel blade down into the dirt and left it there, the long wooden handle quivering. Putting a hand on each side of the narrow slit, he pushed up even as he kicked his legs up. A push with one arm rolled him over, a bit dirtier than he’d been but with his body out of the hole, at least. Standing, he brushed dirt from his hands and walked to greet his sapper support.

“Hey,” Arrivillaga called, reaching down and picking up Larralde’s helmet and load carrying equipment, “at least try to look the part will you?” He tossed the helmet and the assembly toward his commander.

“I’ll try,” Larralde smiled, slipping his arms and shoulders into the webbing and placing the helmet onto his head.

“Thing is, sir,” the engineer lieutenant said, as Larralde showed him on the ground what he wanted done, “I’ve got nothing. No mines, no wire—no engineer stakes even if I had wire, no vehicles, no dozers, no bucket loaders, no backhoes. Nada. I can’t do what you want.”

Larralde sounded disgusted, not with the engineer but with life, as he asked, “Well, what the hell can you do?”

“I can cut you some logs so your people can put up some half decent overhead cover,” the engineer replied. “I can build you a—very limited, be it noted—number of wood and dirt obstacles. I’ve got my platoon sergeant and a small party out ripping up cattle fences for wire. You can have some of that, when it shows up, strung from tree to tree. We can do an abatis to block the road itself. I’ve got a little bit of explosive to spare, and we’ve got commo wire, clothespins, plastic spoons, and a few batteries, so I can make you a few booby traps in lieu of the mines I don’t have. I can show your people how to put in antipersonnel stakes, ‘pungi stakes,’ the gringos call them. I can maybe make you a fougasse or two, and we’ve got some Russian MON command detonated directional mines.”

“Why don’t we have any lay-and-forget mines?” Larralde asked.

“Shit!” the engineer spat. “We were supposed to, sir—antitank mines, at least, since the previous government was stupid enough to sign onto the Ottawa Treaty. There were coming in by ship through Georgetown. The ship was about an hour’s sailing out when that one got sunk in the harbor. They redirected it to New Amsterdam, where it sits, so I am told, sir, waiting for someone to unload it. The wire is there, too. Can’t imagine how they’ll get it to us even if they unload it, since the road between New Amsterdam and Georgetown is infested with guerillas, half the bridges are down, and the coastal railroad was cut three days ago.

“Might not have made any difference, though, even if it had managed to land at Georgetown; the Marines are much too busy seeing their own gear is unloaded to worry about ours. Motherfuckers.”

Larralde tsked, “Such language.” Sitting, he waved the lieutenant down next to him and pulled out a pen and notebook. Opening it, he began to make a sketch of the area. “Okay,” he said, pointing his pen at the lieutenant, “first priority to the abatis …”

The first priority of work, so Arrivillaga had told the company, was security. Carlos Villareal figured survival was approximately as important, to the extent that the two didn’t overlap. Thus, Lily lay down behind her rifle, facing south, while he dug furiously, stopping only to chop at the ubiquitous roots that barred their path to China.

It wasn’t that Lily was unwilling to dig. Indeed, they’d tried switching on and off, off and on, already. The problem was that she just couldn’t dig as fast in alternating stints as he could, unaided. It was a humiliating experience for her, but, as Carlos had told her, “Your sensitivities are not nearly as important as both of us surviving to go home. So, as the sergeant major would say, ‘shut up and soldier.’” He’d smiled as he’d said it, trying to take out some of the sting. It hadn’t really worked; Vargas was still deeply humiliated.

At least she didn’t cry, Carlos thought. I swear I couldn’t stand it if she had.