by Peter Nealen
So far, though, the rooms had been empty. It was as if the defenders they’d killed near the entrance had been all that was left.
Flanagan didn’t trust that they had been, but that was why they were continuing to clear. He hadn’t heard anyone call out that they’d seen Clemente’s body yet.
The locals and the Blackhearts reached the master staircase at about the same time. Flanagan and Pacheco exchanged nods, and they headed up, weapons pivoting to cover the doors to either side of the balcony above.
Most of them were closed. They’d have to clear each of those rooms, as well. But for the moment, the primary target was the big double door at the top of the stairs.
There was no stack up. Flanagan didn’t have time to even suggest it. Pacheco went in and kicked the doors open, riding the right-hand door to the wall as Flanagan rushed to catch up, taking the left. He came up against a wardrobe set behind the door, but he cleared the corner before pivoting toward the center of the room.
It appeared to have been an entertainment room, but it had been retrofitted into something of a command center. A field desk stood in the center, while the entertainment center had been shoved against another wall. Crates and cases had been stacked up haphazardly around the room, several open to reveal piles of expensive things like silver platters and fancy vases.
He took all that in at a glance, even as one of the San Tabal volunteers came through the door behind him and took a shotgun blast to the face.
The man’s feet flew out from under him and he crashed onto his back in the threshold, his skull a bloody ruin. At almost the same time, Pacheco and Flanagan pivoted toward the field desk, which had been overturned.
The man behind the desk had fired over the top. But the field desk was hardly what anyone would consider cover. Both Flanagan and Pacheco opened fire right through the desktop.
Green-painted plywood splintered and cracked under the onslaught, as close to a dozen 5.56 rounds tore through the flimsy barrier and punched into the body beyond. The man grunted and collapsed, the shotgun clattering to the floor.
Flanagan moved forward, his weapon leveled, careful not to over penetrate to expose himself to some of the dead spaces behind the crates. He advanced just far enough to see who they’d shot.
There was no mistaking the identity of the blood-soaked, bullet-riddled body. He’d studied the target photos enough.
Ramon Clemente was dead. The contract, such as it was, had been fulfilled.
Now they just had to finish securing the city and get Lara installed as mayor.
Except that even as the gunfire fell silent, he could hear the distant growl of helicopters. And he didn’t think that they were friendlies, either. Not that close to Venezuela.
Chapter 26
Brannigan heard the helos, too, in the sudden hush that had fallen over San Tabal. Bursts of sporadic gunfire still echoed over the city, but that would probably continue for a while. There would be holdouts, people celebrating with gunfire, and some people would take advantage of the chaos to carry out vendettas or seize what they could.
The gunfire didn’t concern him nearly as much as the helicopters.
Brannigan, Javakhishvili, Quintana, and Lara had been joined by nearly two hundred volunteers. They’d run through Pacheco’s remaining stores of weapons quickly, but one of the policemen—a weaselly-looking man of questionable loyalty, who had taken a job with the Green Shirts but quickly changed sides once one of Quintana’s men had knocked on his door—had fingered another cache that the Green Shirts had placed for “the defense of the city against the Colombian governmental regressives.” It still hadn’t been enough, so those farmers, shopkeepers, and other local citizens who’d joined up who hadn’t gotten an AK, FNC, or M16 were now carrying machetes, pitchforks, and rocks.
If those helicopters were hostile, these people wouldn’t have a chance.
He stepped out into the street, scanning the hills above the city. There. He squinted for a moment, then turned to Quintana. “Get one of your most trustworthy lieutenants and get half these guys up to the police station. Herc will go with them. Have them report to Wade and get ready to defend it. The rest of us will move to the plaza and the mayor’s house.” He hoped that the sudden silence meant that his Blackhearts had taken the two centers of gravity in the city. Since neither Wade nor Flanagan had called for help over the radio, that was probably a good guess. Sometimes no news really is good news. Neither man would have let themselves get pinned down or outflanked without calling for support.
“What if those are Colombian helicopters?” Quintana asked, even as he started dividing the mob of volunteers up.
“They might be. The Colombians do have Mi-17s, if I remember correctly.” The helos were still a good distance away, but the profile was unmistakable. “But so do the Venezuelans, and those birds are coming in from the north.”
Quintana’s face turned grave as he looked up and noticed that, as well. Brannigan gripped his shoulder. “It’s not over yet. We don’t know who they are. Get your people moving; we’ll set in defenses and if they’re friendlies, we can stand down. If they’re not, then we keep fighting.”
He didn’t say that the odds were stacked against them if the Venezuelan Army had decided to enter the fray. Ten mercenaries, a couple dozen cops, and a bunch of eager but untrained and inexperienced irregular volunteers wouldn’t last long against even the less-than-impressive National Army of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
Maybe they wouldn’t need to hold for long. Maybe with the Venezuelans making the first move by invading Colombian territory, they’d only have to defend themselves until the Colombian National Army responded.
But a lot of them would still be dead by that point.
They were committed, though. If they gave up the city to the Venezuelans, they may as well pack it in. And then their allies would probably all be slaughtered.
His face set with grim determination, he headed uphill, toward the plaza.
***
Wade had reacted quickly when he’d heard the helos, before even setting eyes on them. He knew enough about their situation that he didn’t immediately trust anything, and knew that without comms, they had to assume that the incoming forces were hostile until proven friendly. He’d seen too many green-on-blue or blue-on-blue incidents brought about through simple lack of communication to think that it was in any way time to relax.
“Get everyone under cover. Vinnie! Get up here and get on a window! I want that belt-fed in place to cover any approaches to the building!” He glanced around, but nobody had any smokes. Flares. The cops have to have flares or something. He started downstairs, looking for the police gear room.
He was just starting to dig into the lockers when he heard his radio crackle. “Angry Ragnar, Shady Slav. Coming up from the southeast with a large group of friendlies. Watch your fires toward the street.”
“Roger. Police station’s secure. Bring it in.” He glanced up as he thought of something. “Be careful of the wreck in the gateway—it got shot up pretty good, and it might be leaking fuel.”
“Copy. We’re moving in pretty quick—looks like those helos are about two minutes out.” There was a pause, and then Javakhishvili’s voice turned grim. “Be advised, they’ve got Venezuelan roundels on their tails. They are not friendlies.”
Wade just grinned wolfishly. “Then we get to kill some Venezuelan regulars. Dead Communists are dead Communists. I’m not choosy.”
***
Galvez had waited until he saw the helicopters moving in over the mountains above the city to make his move.
He was certain that Clemente had called the Venezuelans as soon as he’d realized just how badly the entire war was going. In fact, Galvez was sure that he’d called them as soon as the assault on the Galán farm had failed.
It only went further to prove that Clemente wasn’t the man to lead the revolution. If he was even still alive.
Galvez was still determined to snatch victory out
of this disaster. His plan was still nebulous, but if he could at least retake the mayor’s house, he might be able to work things out with the Venezuelans. They didn’t want to control this part of Colombia, after all, but simply to spread the Revolution, just like he did.
It had taken entirely too long to round up a decent attack force, and even now, he was getting sidelong glances from some of the hardened FARC fighters who had responded to the call. They’d been on the way for the last several days, filtering down out of the camps in the Norte de Santander Depot, drawn by Clemente’s call for reinforcements. But their leader, a mustached man known only as Fabian, had been decidedly unimpressed by what he’d seen so far, and hadn’t hesitated to express his opinion.
Galvez was already considering how he might kill Fabian without triggering an instant mutiny from the other FARC fighters.
He and his small, fifty-man assault force had watched from a hill on the south side of the valley as the growing crowd of local volunteers had moved up toward the center of the city. Now, as he saw them split up and run as the Venezuelans closed in, he saw his opening.
“We have to attack now. We can hit them from behind as they are disorganized and looking at the Venezuelans. We’ll take the mayor’s mansion, fortify it, and then once the Venezuelans have cleared the rest of them out, we can negotiate the rest.” He was sure he could work that out—he’d fought alongside the Venezuelans before. The solidarity of the Revolution was important to them, too.
He got up and ran down the hill toward the handful of trucks they’d gathered to make the assault. Time was short.
***
Flanagan met Quintana and Brannigan at the plaza. Some of the locals, seeing many of their neighbors gathering around the fountain with weapons, had started to come out of their houses and apartments. Quintana’s cops were trying to convince them that it still wasn’t safe, pointing to the circling helicopters overhead. Some had seen the birds and immediately sought cover again. Others were still getting it through their heads.
But when automatic fire erupted from the street to the south, a lot of them figured out that the danger wasn’t past.
Unfortunately, it was too late for some, as several of them were smashed lifelessly to the cobblestones in a welter of blood. The screams were almost drowned out by the gunfire.
Brannigan turned, dashing to the corner of the mansion and dropping to a knee, bringing his Galil to bear and searching for targets. Two ancient Land Cruisers were hurtling up the street, with Green Shirt fighters leaning out the side windows, spraying bullets at anything that moved.
Then Curtis opened fire from the roof.
He didn’t have a lot of ammo left for the Negev, but bullets chopped into the hood of the lead vehicle, walking up into the windshield and smashing into the driver. A faint adjustment drove the last of the burst across the windshield and into the passenger.
Brannigan took a shot at the man leaning out of one of the rear windows, but the man had ducked inside just as the Land Cruiser swerved and bounced over the curb to smash into a storefront on the side of the street.
The lead vehicle was screwed, but the Land Cruiser behind it braked hard and skidded to a stop. The Green Shirts bailed out and scrambled to cover in and around the surrounding buildings, still spraying fire up the street toward the plaza. Brannigan had to duck back as bullets smacked plaster off the mansion’s wall above his head.
More fire erupted off to the west. The Green Shirts were trying to flank them.
***
Flanagan and Gomez had already faded around the corner of the mansion, working their way around to flank the Green Shirt assault, so they had just slipped away from the plaza when the flanking attack opened fire.
When Flanagan took a knee for a second to assess the situation and glanced back, he saw that Hank had joined them, racing along the street and skidding to a halt behind Gomez, pivoting to cover the north. He pointed his Galil toward the Mi-17s that were still circling above. “How the hell are we supposed to fight more Green Shirts and the Venezuelans?”
“The Venezuelans aren’t on the ground yet. Worry about the Green Shirts for now.” Flanagan got up and moved toward the next corner. “Mario. High-low?”
Gomez nodded. “I’ll go high.”
Flanagan took a knee and leaned out around the corner, while Gomez stood above and behind him, leaning out at a slightly different angle. Both men came around and brought their weapons to bear at almost the same moment.
The men clustered around the ancient Ford at the next corner a block away, dumping fire toward the mansion and the plaza, didn’t look like Green Shirts. They were dressed in woodland camouflage, with black tac vests and black and green berets or woodland boonie covers. They blazed away down the street with an M60 and half a dozen AKMs.
They weren’t wearing the red, yellow, and blue armbands, but Flanagan had seen enough photos of the FARC’s pseudo-uniform to be pretty sure he knew what he was looking at.
Neither he nor Gomez hesitated. As soon as they identified their targets and found their sights, they opened fire.
Flanagan shot the M60 gunner three times, smashing two rounds into his side before the third punched through his temple. The thickset, mustached man fell over sideways, his joints gone loose, blood pouring from his shattered skull onto the machinegun.
Even as the FARC fighters realized that the flankers had just been flanked, Flanagan and Gomez raked fire across the vehicle, bullets punching into flesh and metal and shattering glass. Three more FARC gunmen collapsed, dead or bleeding out.
Two more, however, scrambled behind the dubious cover of the old pickup and returned fire. Long, stuttering bursts stitched the side of the building where Flanagan and Gomez had taken cover, smacking debris into their faces and forcing both men back around the corner.
Then one of the Mi-17s roared overhead, flying low enough that the rotor wash rattled the windows in the building. Hank tracked it with his Galil, though the rifle wouldn’t do much against the massive transport helicopter. Fortunately, it didn’t appear to have a door gunner.
But as it came to a hover over the intersection, the side doors slid open, and rappelling ropes spooled out. A figure appeared in the doorway, leveling an AK-103. More dark figures were moving behind him, preparing to rappel to the street.
Before the first man could descend, though, a delta-winged shape flashed overhead with a deafening thunderclap. The Mi-17 rocked as the Colombian IAI Kfir fighter’s sonic boom swept over it.
The two-plane flight banked hard over the eastern ridge and circled back around. The Mi-17 dumped the ropes and dipped its nose, pulling hard away from the intersection and heading for the north as fast as its rotors could move it.
Hank audibly let out a sigh of relief. “The Colombians finally decided they didn’t want the Venezuelans getting involved.”
Flanagan didn’t answer. He’d dropped to his side and shoved out into the street as the surviving FARC gunmen kept shooting.
Flanagan fired twice. The first bullet missed, spitting dirt and gravel off the street. The second tore through the FARC shooter’s ankle and the man collapsed, screaming. Two more shots silenced him.
The remaining FARC fighter turned tail and ran.
***
When the Colombian Kfir’s drove the Venezuelans running hard for the border, the last of the starch seemed to go right out of the remaining Green Shirts.
Most of those near the second vehicle began to look up at the receding helicopters before throwing their weapons down and come out of cover with their hands up.
But four of them, led by a gaunt, wolfish man wearing a black beret, dashed toward the south, covering their retreat with a storm of automatic rifle fire.
“Galvez!” Fuentes was back by the fountain with Lara, his FNC leveled over the lip of the fountain. He dumped the last of his magazine toward the retreating Green Shirts, though his marksmanship left a bit to be desired. He sprayed bullets down the street, but he hit little b
esides the wrecked Land Cruiser and the walls on either side of the street.
Fuentes’s rifle ran dry with a click. He stared down at it for a moment, as Brannigan came out of cover. “Blackhearts, on me!” If that really was one of the Green Shirts’ leaders, he couldn’t be allowed to escape.
He barely avoided getting his head blown off from behind as one of the San Tabal irregulars ripped off another mag down the street. The man didn’t hit anything, and in the meantime, Galvez and his handful of killers disappeared around a corner.
“Galvez is on the move, heading south.” Brannigan panted into his radio as he ran back into the street and pursued. “Woodsrunner, head due south and see if you can cut him off. Angry Ragnar, have you got any police vehicles you can use up there?”
“Already moving.” Wade wouldn’t want to be left out.
Brannigan sprinted down the street, his boots hammering the pavement, his joints feeling all of the thirty years or more that he’d been fighting in foreign lands. He only slowed as he neared the corner that Galvez had disappeared behind.
Easing around the corner behind his weapon, he didn’t run into the ambush he’d feared, but he caught a glimpse of Galvez and the Green Shirts hustling between the vehicles parked on the street toward the next intersection.
They suddenly stopped, the lead man falling to the ground with limp finality, as bullets chewed into him and the side of the van parked right at the corner. The three survivors shot back as they retreated into a two-story storefront behind the van.
Brannigan, Javakhishvili, and Pacheco closed in on the store as Flanagan, Gomez, and Hank came around the corner, guns up. More gunfire from inside the shop forced them back, but Flanagan and Gomez quickly adjusted, crossing the side street and getting out of the line of fire as they continued to circle toward their quarry.
