Edge of Battle aow-2

by Dale Brown

  The aircraft performed another low-altitude aerial refueling on this leg of the journey, ensuring that the smaller aircraft was completely topped off before continuing further. The MC-130P had a combat range of almost four thousand miles and could have made two complete round trips with ease; the smaller aircraft had only half the range and needed the extra fuel to maintain its already-slim margin of safety. Once topped off, the MC-130P orbited at one thousand feet above the ground about sixty miles northwest of the city of Durango, over the most isolated portion of the central Sierra Madre Occidental Mountain range and directly in the “dead spot” of several surveillance and air traffic control radar systems. The electronic warfare officer on board the Combat Shadow was on the lookout for any sign of detection, but the electromagnetic spectrum remained quiet as the two aircraft split up.

  Just north of the city of Zacatecas the smaller aircraft jogged farther east to avoid Guadalajara’s powerful air traffic and air defense radar system. Now the aircraft was no longer over the mountains but flying in Mexico’s central valley, so it was back down to five hundred feet or less aboveground, using terrain-avoidance radar, precise satellite-guided navigation, night vision devices that made it easy to see the ground and large obstacles, and photo-quality digital terrain and obstruction charts, with computerized audio and visual warnings of nearby radio towers and transmission lines. Northeast of the city of San Luis Potosí, the aircraft made a hard turn south to avoid Tampico’s coastal surveillance radar.

  Now the aircraft was flying in the heart of Mexico’s population centers, with 80 percent of the country’s population within one hundred miles of their present position—and most of the country’s air defense, surveillance, and air traffic radars as well. Plus, they had very little terrain to hide in now. Staying far away from towns and highways, relying mostly on darkness to hide their presence, the aircraft’s crew prepared for the most dangerous part of the mission. After over five hours of relative peace and quiet, the last twelve minutes was going to be very busy indeed. The crew performed their “Before Enemy Defended Area Penetration” checklist, making sure all lights were off, radios were configured to avoid any accidental transmissions, the cabin was depressurized and secure, and the crew members waiting in the cargo area were alerted to prepare for evasive maneuvers and possible hostile action.

  Somehow, after the events that had transpired in the past several days, it was not hard to imagine they were flying over enemy territory—even though they were flying over Mexico.

  Immediately prior to the last turning point over the town of Ciudad Hidalgo, eighty miles northwest of Mexico City, came the first radio message on “GUARD,” the international emergency frequency, in English: “Unidentified aircraft at the two-niner-zero degree radial of Mexico City VOR, seventy-three DME, this is Mexico City Center, squawk Mode Three five-seven-one-seven; ident, and contact center on one-two-eight point three two, UHF three-two-seven point zero. Acknowledge immediately.” It was repeated several times in both English and Spanish, even after the radar return completely dropped off the scope.

  The message was never answered, of course—which only served to alert the Fuerza Aerea Mexicana, the Mexican Air Force, and the Interior Defense Forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Mexican Air Force had one airbase northeast of Mexico City dedicated to air defense, with nine F-5E Tiger II fighters assigned there; two were on twenty-four-hour alert. By the time the aircraft was twenty miles west of Mexico City, the fighters were airborne. But the pilots had had very little actual night low-altitude air defense training, and the radars on the American-made Tiger IIs were not designed to detect low-flying aircraft against a heavily industrialized and populated background, so the fighters could do nothing else but fly a medium-altitude patrol pattern, away from the commercial airline arrival and departure paths and surrounding high terrain, and hope that Mexican air traffic control could spot the unidentified aircraft again and vector them in close enough for visual contact.

  But the Internal Affairs Ministry’s response was far different. Primarily charged with identifying, tracking, and stopping insurgents and revolutionaries that might threaten the republic, the ministry responded to every such alert, no matter how small, as if it was an impending coup or attack on the capital.

  The Political Police, which commanded a larger helicopter force than the army and air force combined, immediately launched several dozen helicopters of mixed varieties over the capital, mostly American-and Brazilian-made patrol helicopters that carried a flight crew of two, an observer/sniper in the rear, along with searchlights; a few were equipped with infrared cameras. The helicopters flew preplanned patrol routes over the capital, concentrating on scanning government buildings, embassies, and residences for any sign of trouble. Another dozen helicopters were placed on standby alert, ready to respond immediately if necessary; the Internal Affairs Ministry also could commandeer as many aircraft of any kind as it wanted, including helicopter and fixed-wing gunships and large transports. A small fleet of VIP helicopters was also placed in standby or prepositioned to various places around the capital, ready to whisk away high-ranking members of the government to secure locations.

  At the same time, the twenty-five thousand members of the Federal District Police were put on full alert and ordered to report to their duty stations or emergency assignments. Within the Federal District, the Federal District Police had ultimate control, even over the military; they were just as well equipped as the armed forces, including armored personnel carriers, antitank weapons, attack helicopters, and even light tanks. These ground and air forces were deployed throughout the Federal District and immediately began closing off side streets, shutting down bars and restaurants, restricting citizens to their homes, and establishing strict movement control throughout the capital. The highest concentration of Federal District Police were at the Palacio Nacional, Zocalo, Embassy Row along the Paseo de la Reforma between the Mexican Stock Exchange and the Chapultepec Polanco district, the major hotels near the Independence Monument and Lincoln Park, and the Internal Affairs Ministry itself.

  Mixed in with all these protective forces were the Political Police, whose primary job was to maintain surveillance on all of the important and high-ranking Mexican politicians, their families, and major associates—including their staffs, bank accounts, telephones, e-mails, and postal correspondence, unofficial as well as official; and the Sombras, the Special Investigations Squad, assigned to keep an eye on the highest-level persons in the Mexican government and report any suspicious activities directly to Felix Díaz. During these emergencies, every member of the Political Police was brought into the ministry headquarters at the Bosque de Chapultepec and ordered to update their contact files and begin careful monitoring of their assigned targets to discover any clues of possible conspiracies against the government.

  Located in the south-central edge of Chapultepec Park just south of the zoo and west of Castillo de Chapultepec, the Ministry of Internal Affairs complex was in effect a walled fortress—unlike most government buildings in Mexico City, citizens were not permitted to freely come and go, and there were no tours. A series of Napoleonic-style office buildings surrounded the complex, creating the outer wall of the complex, with Federal District Police armed with automatic weapons stationed on the rooftops. On each side, the buildings were connected by Spanish-style arches with ornate iron gates. The gates looked decorative, but they had been stressed to stop a five-ton truck from crashing through them, and the width of the opening had been purposely reduced to less than that of an armored personnel carrier.

  Inside the outer walls formed by the older office buildings were the ministry’s operations buildings—the investigator’s offices, communications, arsenal, and barracks, housed in three plain-looking rectangular boxlike buildings arrayed in a triangular shape radiating out from the center of the complex. In the center of the triangle was the main ministry building, a Stalinist-era-looking eight-story tower, resembling simple blocks progressively
smaller in size stacked atop one another, topped with a tall antenna housing structure that supported hundreds of antennas of all sizes and kinds. The building not only housed the minister’s offices and those of his extensive bureaucratic staff but also the electronic eavesdropping and computer centers, the intelligence analyst’s offices, the extensive prison complex, the offices of the Political Police and Sombras, and a so-called special medical center in the subfloor areas—the interrogation center.

  Unlike most of the beautiful, graceful architecture of the Bosque de Chapultepec or the Zocalo, the Internal Affairs Ministry was a dark, uninspiring, foreboding, and ominous place—and that was just the feeling from the outside. Very few persons ever spoke about the facility openly, especially about the activities in the center building—what the people of Mexico City called the “lugar de la oscuridad”—the “place of darkness.” It was meant as a message to the people of Mexico City: we are watching you, and if you dare cross us, this is where you will be taken.

  “Why the hell did we come back here, Elvarez?” Minister of Internal Affairs Felix Díaz snapped as they headed through the security blast doors to the command center conference room. “If we’re under attack, I should be heading to the airport to evacuate.”

  “The safest place for you until we get a report on the evacuation route is here in the ministry building—it can withstand anything except a direct aerial bombardment,” deputy minister José Elvarez said. “As soon as I can verify the security of the Métro and the airport, we will depart. In the meantime, you can get a firsthand report on the situation.”

  “Bullshit, Elvarez. Let’s head to the airport in a ministry armored vehicle right away and…”

  “Sir, I cannot plan an evacuation route without a report from our agents throughout the city, even if we took a main battle tank,” Elvarez said emphatically. “And if you do not personally direct your staff to secure the records, gather information, and handle the emergency, they will all flee the building and leave it wide open for whoever caused this alert.”

  “I will personally cut out the eyeballs of any man or woman who runs out on me,” Díaz growled. Obviously he wasn’t happy about this situation, but he quickly followed along. The rest of the senior staff of the Internal Affairs Ministry was already in place when Felix Díaz entered the conference room. “Take seats,” he ordered. “Report.”

  “Mexico City Air Route Traffic Control Center notified the Minister of Defense that an unidentified low-flying aircraft was spotted briefly on radar about seventy miles outside the city,” the command center duty officer responded. “Defense notified us immediately, and we issued an emergency situation action order to all Internal Affairs departments immediately.”

  “Any sign of the aircraft?” Díaz asked. “Identification?”

  “No, sir,” he replied. “As you know, Minister, there is only one major threat to the government or the Federal District from the air, and that is a special operations commando insertion mission, most likely from the United States. This aircraft was traveling at over three hundred kilometers an hour, which means it was not a helicopter.”

  “What, then?”

  “Most likely a reconnaissance flight, a probe of some kind, or a warning to us,” the duty officer said. “Too slow for an attack jet—possibly a turboprop plane such as a C-130.”

  “A warning?”

  “A simple message, sir: we can fly over your capital any time we like, and there is nothing you can do about it,” Elvarez said. “The Americans made many of these warning flights in the past over Nicaragua, Haiti, and Panama prior to the start of hostilities against them—it is a common scare tactic.”

  “Contact the Foreign and Defense Ministries and ask if the Americans requested to perform such a flyover—a test of their radar systems, perhaps, or an embassy rescue exercise, or other such reason that was not communicated to us.” Elvarez relayed the order immediately. Díaz thought for a moment, then shrugged. “A probe seems unnecessary—the Americans have been spying on us for decades and have many of our people on their payroll,” he said, thinking aloud. “A warning message sounds more likely…” He stopped, his eyes widening in fear. “But we can’t count on this just being a warning—we must assume we are under attack unless proven otherwise. Status of our force deployments?”

  “All units reporting force deployments fully underway,” Elvarez said. “I have personally received visual staus reports from my staff on the most important locations—those spots will be fully manned within the hour.”

  “The Internal Affairs Ministry complex?”

  “All defensive systems fully manned and operational, sir. All defense and security sectors reporting fully manned and ready.”

  “And the Defense Ministry?”

  “Under full surveillance and secure,” Elvarez replied. Although the Ministry of National Defense was located at the Palacio Nacional, the chiefs of staff, the bulk of the defense bureaucracy, and the headquarters of the First Military Zone, the actual military forces assigned to defend the capital, were located at a large base in the extreme western edge of the Federal District, just three miles northwest of the Internal Affairs Ministry complex, known simply as the Campo Militar. The First Military Zone was the largest of Mexico’s thirty-five zones, with just over fifteen thousand infantry, marines, and airmen assigned to a dozen bases in the area; two battalions, about six thousand infantry and marines, were assigned to the Campo Militar itself. “They do not seem to have placed the Campo Militar garrison on alert or deployed any forces anywhere in the Federal District. They responded immediately with a security and status report and gave us a fairly complete equipment list, as required. It has not yet been visually verified that this equipment is indeed available to us but that report will be in shortly.”

  “Where is General Rojas? Have you succeeded in locating him yet?”

  “It now appears that General Rojas was in the Campo Militar garrison all along,” Elvarez reported, after a quick scan of his notes. “After the alert, one of the command post officers let it slip that the general was en route to the battle staff area; this was later verified by several cellular telephone traces.”

  “But not visually verified?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then we should assume that Rojas’s whereabouts are unknown,” Díaz said. “I want his exact location pinpointed and visually verified, and I want it done immediately.”

  “Yes, sir.” Elvarez relayed the order, then referred to a notebook in front of him, checking off items on a checklist. “Alert plus thirty minutes items appear to be completed, sir,” he said. “Next action items are at alert plus one hour. I shall notify the Palacio Nacional and the Senate and Chamber of Deputies that…”

  At that moment they could hear the deep rapid-fire staccato of a heavy machine gun, and seconds later an alarm bell sounded and telephones on the conference table began to ring. “What is it?” Díaz demanded.

  “Air defense gun emplacements in the Internal Affairs Ministry complex engaged an unidentified helicopter,” Elvarez said after getting the telephone report. The armed forces of the United Mexican States had a grand total of fifty air defense pieces: forty M-55 quad 12.7-millimeter antiaircraft gun units mounted on an M-16 half-track vehicle, most over sixty years old and in various states of functionality; and ten RBS-70 laser-guided antiaircraft missile launchers mounted on Humvees. Of these fifty pieces, eight of the antiaircraft guns and two RBS-70 SAMs protected the Internal Affairs Ministry—the rest were assigned to military bases.

  “What’s happening?” Díaz shouted.

  “One aircraft hit, sir!” Elvarez shouted. “Very large rotorcraft, type unknown but believed to be American…”

  “Of course it’s American—who else would be invading Mexico now?” Díaz asked sarcastically. The lights flickered briefly in the conference room seconds before they heard a loud booom! echo through the walls. “Where did it go down?”

  “No visual contact yet, sir.”

>   “The American commandos will already be on the ground—they may have been here days ago,” Díaz said. “Special ops teams usually come in groups of twenty-four.” The former air force officer had received many briefings over the years on procedures for both American and Russian special ops forces. “Tell all security units that we are under air assault. Shut down the complex and order all personnel to repel any unidentified persons at all costs!” He turned to Elvarez and said in a low voice, “Start document destruction procedures immediately—and for God’s sake, get rid of that evidence down in the medical center! Now!”

  Every person not strapped in on board the CV-22 Osprey special ops tilt-rotor aircraft was thrown off his feet by the sudden shock and explosion off the left wing—except for the four Cybernetic Infantry Devices standing hunched over near the open ramp in the back of the cargo bay. “Hang on, guys,” the pilot said on the intercom, “we just lost the left engine. I turned us right into a triple-A truck. Check the auto crossover.”

  “Crossover indicating green, but I’m still not getting full RPMs on the left,” the copilot shouted. “Check hydraulics…”

  “Got it!” the flight engineer chimed in. “I’m initiating manual emergency hydraulic pressurization—the auto system didn’t activate.”