Arauca: A Novel of Colombia

by D. Alan Johnson

  “Yes sir. We have a converted LET410 rigged up with a GAU-17.” The GAU-17, commonly called a mini-gun, was a six barreled machine gun capable of firing six thousand .30 caliber rounds per minute. “We’ve been wanting to come over there to Florida to demonstrate our capabilities to SOCOM.”

  Stan was a real believer in the market for a cheap gunship, commonly called a “gun platform” by the military. Only a few countries had a gunship designed to fire out of the left side, allowing the aircraft to circle to the left while always keeping guns on the target. The American Air Force proved the concept with the AC-47 in Viet Nam, and the family of AC-130 gunships had served with distinction in Viet Nam, Grenada, Panama, Iraq I and II, Afghanistan, and Iran.

  Counter-insurgency warfare did not diminish after the Soviet Union had fallen as everyone predicted, but blossomed all over the world. Like many before him, Stan found investors and developed a cheap, effective counter insurgency aircraft. With a simplified infra-red sighting system and a light weight navigation and communications suite, the Cactus aircraft was also capable of seeking out targets and gathering intelligence. But like many before him, he was unable to compete with the giants like Lockheed, Northrop, and Boeing.

  “No time for that, Mr. Perry. I’ve got an operation in Colombia that could be risky. I’ve looked at your website and your experience. Would you consider taking your prototype to Northern Colombia and using it in support of an oil camp down there? We need a turn-key package. Your pilots, your gunners, your maintenance people.”

  Stan Perry was a retired Army combat helicopter pilot. He heard the undertones of the general’s conversation and understood the weasel words. “Support” meant a full combat type operation.

  “General, we would be more than happy to sell our aircraft to you,” he said carefully. “And then you can do whatever your little heart desires.”

  “Look, Mr. Perry. I have a situation. First of all, I have operational funds, but no money to purchase any assets. Those acquisition funds come out of a different pot. Secondly, I have no personnel that I can use to solve this problem. I’m prepared to enter into a contract with you today if you can get to Colombia within 48 hours.”

  “I’d never be able to get insurance. And without insurance, my investors would never allow the aircraft to leave US airspace.”

  “Name a price, Perry!”

  Stan could hear the desperation in the general’s voice. All of his competitors had won contracts in the Middle East, but he had been left out. His aircraft, a well built Short Take Off and Landing (STOL) twin engine, was manufactured in the Czech Republic, not in the US, and therefore he had no Congressional support. The whole package was cheap, simple, and elegant. That meant that it was not glamorous enough to interest the Air Force. His mind quickly weighed out the facts and started building a plan.

  If this general is calling me, it means that I am the last chance for him, he thought. My investors have been threatening to close down the operation because we have not sold anything in over a year. If I could get enough money up front to pay for the aircraft, they might let me do it.

  “General, I’ll need a lot of money up front to get my investors to go along.” Pause.

  “Well, Mr. Perry, I don’t have all day. Give me some type of cost figure,” Tackaberry said.

  “General, can I call you back?” The general gave Stan his personal cell number.

  “You’ve got 15 minutes.”

  “Yes sir.” Stan slowly hung up the phone and stared at the ceiling preparing what he was going to say. Then he picked up his cell phone and called his main investor.

  “Charles, I have a contract to work for the US Army in Colombia.” Pause. Stan was ready for the staccato questions. He was sorry that he had ever involved money men who had never been in the military.

  “Where!? No way that aircraft can go to Colombia! It would be too easy to lose it, and it’s my only real asset.”

  “Yes, we could lose the aircraft, but it’s the only way we can get our money back,” Stan answered. Pause. Stan listened as Charles Pataski gave his speech; the same one Stan had heard every few days for the last two months.

  Charles talked about how much money he had invested, how he should just close down the operation, and then how he wished he had kept his money in rental property. Stan wondered why there were no questions about the danger to his people.

  “How are we going to get insurance?” Charles asked.

  “No insurance is available for an operation like this. Our bid has to include enough money up front to pay for the aircraft in case we lose it,” Stan said. Long pause.

  “I’ll let the aircraft go if you are going to fly it, and we get money in the bank before the aircraft leaves Junction.”

  “Yes sir, I’ll be going as the main pilot. I’ll put some figures together so that we recoup the cost of the aircraft before it takes off.”

  “OK. Let me know how it comes out.” The investor hung up.

  “Yes, sir,” Stan said to the dead phone.

  Slowly and carefully, so that he would not leave out any words, Stan cursed all investors and especially Charles Pataski. Money grubbing parasites that get rich off of my ideas, my work, and my contacts.

  Stan started penciling in some numbers. He added in the cost of the aircraft, his personal investment in the company, some of the Research and Development costs, and projected costs to ferry the aircraft to Colombia. Then he figured the personnel costs, including large bonuses for combat duty, hotels and per diem, landing fees, and then a good cushion.

  Stan gulped when he saw the numbers, but he hit his calculator again, and added another ten per cent.

  Calling General Tackaberry, he glanced at his watch. Thirteen minutes had burned by. It seemed like thirteen seconds. Can I really save myself and this company from financial ruin? Will I survive a combat tour in Colombia? Tackaberry picked up on the fifth ring.

  “Give it to me, Perry!”

  “General, I need 978,000 dollars in my account before we move. Then it will be $4,900 per flight hour, with a minimum of two hours per day. The US government will supply fuel, guns and gun parts, and ammunition.”

  There was a long pause.

  “That’s a lot of money, Mr. Perry.”

  “Sir, you’re asking us to go into an extremely difficult situation. No insurance, people shooting at us, and no SAR.” Stan could feel the sweat trickling down his back. Please take it. Please!

  “How soon can you leave?”

  “As soon as I get a gun and money in my account.”

  “Give me your account number. Fax me a signed contract as soon as possible. I assume that your cost does not include housing and per diem for your crews.”

  “Right.” If they pay for housing and per diem, he thought, that’s just a little more profit for us. “And wiring instructions are on the ‘contact us’ section of our webpage.”

  “I want you to leave for Tampa today. We will be basing you on one of the islands close to the Colombian coast, or maybe in northern Colombia. We’ll get you a gun plus a spare here in Tampa.”

  “Yes sir. We’ll leave as soon as the money arrives.” Click. The general hung up.

  Stan turned to his secretary who had been watching this whole exchange with her mouth open.

  “Connie, dig out the contract for Sri Lanka. Make the changes you heard me talk with the general about. Here’s the figures. And he said that they would pay for housing and per diem. Cut and paste, and then print it up for my signature. We’re having a company meeting, and then I’m going home to pack.”

  The company meeting went over just as he thought it would. Too many volunteers for the available slots. He would be taking just three others with him, another pilot, a gunner, and a mechanic who was also a qualified gunner. All three were combat veterans and experienced contractors. They would be ready to depart Junction at 1700.

  Stan only lived three miles from the airport in a small rent house with a great view of the mountain
s. As he wheeled into his drive, he wondered how he would tell his wife about Colombia.

  After Stan retired from the Army, he invested all his savings in a donut shop franchise. He worked fourteen hour days, six days a week. But after seven years of dull, repetitive work, the donut shop failed. Losing his house and all of his family’s savings was bad, but the disapproval of his successful father was much worse.

  As an active member of his Pentecostal church, he also suffered. The entire congregation often heard sermons telling them if a man would follow God, and give God the tithe, then God would financially bless that man. Since Stan had failed financially, he was somehow being tested or even punished by God.

  To recoup, Stan took a job in the Desert as a combat helicopter pilot teaching Iraqis to fly the helicopters donated by the US. As a group, the Iraqis were not culturally ready to use sophisticated electronic targeting and missiles. They concentrated too much on the electronics, and regularly flew the helicopters into the ground. To complete the missions, Stan often found himself as pilot in command in combat instead of a rear area instructor.

  After ten months of increasingly dangerous flying, he had taken an anti-tank rocket in the tail boom while in high hover. Stan had been slightly injured in the crash, but he had been stuck in a very bad neighborhood outside of Bagdad for nearly five hours before he could be extracted by US Marines. He resigned that day. But in just those few months he had gotten his family back on their feet financially.

  Remembering his Iraqi students, Stan began to design a small, simple Counter Insurgency aircraft. He based his design on a cheap, rugged, proven Soviet commuter plane. The aiming system was simple as a hammer, but still ninety percent as good as the black boxes that the US used. Pouring his own money in, and then selling part of the company to a group of investors, he bought an aircraft and built a working prototype.

  They finished the prototype thirteen months ago. And while they had several parties interested, Cactus Air Support had not been able to close a sale. Stan faced financial hell if he lost this company.

  His standing at church would fall. The Reverend was already gunning for him. He would lose his post as a deacon for sure. Two financial shipwrecks in less than ten years, a sure sign that God was not happy with him. He could never face his brother, a successful Toyota dealer in San Antonio. And Stan would never hear the end of his father’s “I told you so’s”.

  “Hi, honey. I’m home!” From force of habit he called out his customary greeting as he walked in the door. His wife would normally be at school teaching sixth grade English, but it was the summer break in Texas.

  “What are you doing home so early? Is something wrong?”

  “No sweetheart, I’m just here to pack. Good news--we got a contract for the airplane, and I’m taking it to Colombia.”

  “Colombia! Stan, you promised, no more operations. You’re going down there and get yourself killed. I just know it. After that close call in Iraq, you promised to stay home. Don’t you know what it means to me to have you here?”

  Stan walked on past while she continued her verbal barrage, and pulled out his big suitcase from the back of the closet.

  “Are you listening to me!?” His wife grabbed his shoulder and pulled him around.

  “Sharon, we will be bankrupt in a few months unless I get a good contract on this airplane. If that means that I have to go to Colombia for a few weeks, so be it.” Stan was packing swiftly, a skill learned from living out of rucksack and suitcases for thirty years. Shorts, jeans, tennis shoes, polo shirts, socks, shaving kit, passport.

  “But you don’t have to go! Send Jose and Andy.”

  “Jose and Andy are going with me.” Stan had been married to this woman for over thirty years, and she still didn’t understand him.

  “Don’t go, Stan. I can’t stand to have you getting shot at again.” Sharon started crying.

  “Listen to me! I’m sixty years old and broke. If I don’t make this business work we are ruined. No retirement savings, tons of debt. We don’t even own a house! I’m going.” Stan silently zipped up his suitcase, picked it up, and walked out to his pick-up.

  As he drove off, he wished that he had kissed his wife goodbye.

  Chapter 9

  0350, Sunday, July 27

  Tolemaida Air Force Base

  30 Miles Southwest of Bogotá

  Colombia

  Santiago Del Carmen crawled up to the fence on the west side of the airbase. Dragging his heavy satchel of grenades, he saw that his brother, Tomas, busy cutting the barbed wire. He then slipped through the hole. Santiago was now the second man onto the airbase. From their detailed briefings and numerous rehearsals, he knew his target, the main helicopter maintenance hangar, squatted straight across the runway from his present position. Tolemaida was one of the most important targets for the FARC. Most of the Colombian Army’s UH-60 Blackhawk and Mi-17 helicopters were based here as well as the main maintenance facility.

  Over the last several weeks, their recon teams had been everywhere on the base. Posing as delivery men, maids, pest control technicians, and garbage men, their agents reported on aircraft positions, troop strength, and security. Other teams did this at each of the important facilities in Colombia. It had been so long since the FARC had actually attacked a military base that security had gone lax. Every night almost all of the soldiers slept, including the perimeter guards. Only the private security guards remained awake.

  Our machine gunners on my right should be on the edge of the runway right now, Santiago thought. In ten minutes, the power to the base will be cut off by blowing up the main transformers. The darkness and confusion will help us get straight in. He saw the machine gunners set up in front of both the enlisted barracks and the officers’ quarters. Several FARC soldiers in the assault group had Chinese NVGs (night vision goggles).

  Instructions from the top were emphatic: Try to kill or wound as few soldiers as possible. Limit casualties so that in the future, the soldiers could more easily be assimilated into the new Colombian Army under the leadership of El Comandante. On the other hand, every officer, especially any pilot, was a prime target. Not many would be around the base. The married officers would be at home, and the single ones would be partying or at their girlfriend’s house. The pilots on duty would be staying in the ready rooms, and those would be summarily killed.

  Santiago did not know the extent of the attacks, but he was aware that this one was part of a nationwide strike against the Colombian military. The objective was to damage every Colombian aircraft so that the Air Force, the National Police, the Army, nor the Navy could fly for at least ten days. And the easiest place to damage an aircraft was on the ground. While aircraft were extremely formidable and dangerous in the air, they were delicate and vulnerable while parked on the ramp. It only took a few bullet holes in the windshield or an engine and an aircraft was grounded for at least two weeks.

  Earlier that night, Santiago and Tomas, rested in the safe house and talked about their mission.

  “Mi hermano, look at all this stuff! We have never had new equipment before like this,” Tomas said. “New boots, new uniforms, grenades, ammo, and even NVGs. I’ve been a soldier in FARC for ten years, and for the first time, I feel like we’re in a real army.”

  “Tomas, you know that it is with the help of our Communist brethren in China that we are able to stand against the imperialist United States and their puppets in Bogotá.” Santiago smiled as he recited the Communist jargon required of FARC soldiers.

  “Yes, we finally get to put a hot poker into the eye of those thieves.” They both laughed, using up some of their nervous energy.

  Speaking much softer, Santiago leaned in and said, “I hear this is just part of the big attack.” He was hoping Tomas, who was an officer, would give him some of the real story about the strikes.

  “Oh, yes. We have teams at every airbase, even Bogotá.” There was hushed awe from all the soldiers gathered nearby as they each thought of attacking the c
apital. The FARC had been pushed out of that whole area years ago.

  “All of us are going to attack together, and try to knock out the Air Force, Navy, and Army aircraft.”

  “Can we do it, hermano?”

  “I can tell you that El Comandante has everything figured out. We are going to soon rule Arauca.”

  Lying in the tall grass just on the far side of the runway, Santiago laughed silently, looking forward to the attack. His heart beat strongly, and his bloodlust welled up. Many times he had waited like this before a big attack, and always it was the same: Preparation, anticipation, and then violent action. Tonight would be no different. He took out his Night Vision Goggles, turned them on, and mounted them on his head. He saw the whole world in black and white, with a strange greenish tinge.

  At 0400, a series of explosions with orange fingers reached into the air as the main transformers and power lines to the base blew up. The blast wave came through a few seconds later and the boom felt like a light slap on Santiago’s cheek and neck. Each team raced forward toward its respective target. When Santiago reached his assigned hangar, he already knew that the metal door would be locked. But the structure was just an aluminum skeleton covered with a heavy polyethylene white sail cloth. Taking out his knife, Santiago easily sliced his way inside.

  Even with the Night Vision Goggles, it was pitch black. Santiago broke open two infrared glow sticks. These sticks, developed for American forces in Viet Nam, were clear pliable plastic tubes, looking like the candles one keeps for power outages. When the soldier flexed the plastic exterior, an inner glass vial broke allowing two chemicals to mix. These chemicals, similar to the chemicals that made lightning bugs visible at night, put out light but no heat. Later versions of these glow sticks produced light only visible to someone wearing Night Vision Goggles or looking through an infrared imager.

  He tossed one glow stick toward the left front of the hangar, and threw the other as far to the back as he could. The light, reflected on the white fabric of the roof, illuminated the interior of the hangar. To someone not wearing the goggles, the hanger still appeared “black as the night itself” as his daughter would say. However, with the NVGs Santiago could clearly see the eight Sikorsky UH-60’s undergoing scheduled maintenance. Some were almost completely disassembled, others looked ready to fly. He thought they looked like giant dead insects.