Silent Running

by Don Pendleton

  “Then what we do?” de Lorenzo asked.

  “Then we’ll start taking out the rest of those bastards.”

  COLONEL PABLO MENDEZ was one of the few field-grade officers in the Mexican army who had more combat time than he did time spent sitting behind a desk. He’d had his buckle in the dust from almost his first assignment years ago as a newly commissioned lieutenant and had kept it there. On top of that, most of his “desk time” had been spent at Fort Bragg and Fort Benning in the United States Army schools learning how to be an even better combat officer. He was both U.S. parachute and Ranger qualified and had done extensive counterguerrilla work at the JFK Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg.

  He’d put his military expertise to work mostly in the southern part of his country although he’d been loaned out to several other Latin American nations to help them curb their own insurgency movements. There were still several ragtag bands of leftover Marxist guerrillas loose in the region’s jungles, but mostly the enemy now were the private armies of the cartel drug lords. And, in many aspects, they were even more difficult opponents than the old-style idealistic guerrillas. For one, they were better armed and were more brutal. But, Marxists or drug lords, he had gone head-to-head with them and bested them all.

  Whatever was sweeping over Mexico now, though, might turn out to be his toughest fight yet.

  He had been in the southern Yucatán when the word came down from army headquarters in Mexico City that he was to immediately cease all operations, return his troops to their home base and stand down. The officer passing on the message couldn’t give him a reason for the orders, and Mendez instantly smelled a rat. One of the dirty little secrets about the workings of the Mexican National Police and military forces was that they weren’t free of political meddling, and the orders sounded political.

  Right after that message, he started receiving radio and cell phone intel from some of his fellow officers saying that the army leadership had been overthrown by some kind of radical group. One by one, though, they went off the air and he feared the worst. His being in the field instead of back at his headquarters was purely a fluke. Two companies of his Ranger-trained Panther counterterrorist battalion were deployed on a training exercise in the Yucatán, and he had flown in to take a look at their operation.

  Not long after the radio calls ceased and a few of the locals reached his lines to report that a group of terrorists had apparently taken over Cancun and were holding the tourists hostage, had it all come together. Someone was taking over the government of his country. He couldn’t turn his back on an outrage to Mexico such as that, and he clearly saw his course of action.

  There might not be anything that he could do about whatever was going on in Mexico City, but he and his men could sure as hell take on a terrorist group in nearby Cancun, and he would.

  For that kind of operation, though, he needed to react quickly. But when he’d called back to his home base, he’d learned that his choppers had been grounded on orders from army headquarters. He had the JetRanger he’d flown down in, but his jungle fighters had been operating on foot and from a small fleet of two-and-a-half-ton trucks. Trucks weren’t as fast as choppers, but they were all the mobility he had and they would have to serve.

  Using his tactical radio, Mendez quickly recalled his units, ordering them to pull back to the closest pickup points to wait for their truck transport.

  As soon as the first truck was loaded, he dispatched it down the dirt road in the jungle toward the village of Cancun with orders for the soldiers to establish a perimeter east of the village and to wait for the rest of his troops. It would take a couple hours for the trucks to get all of his people in place. But when he did, he was going to kick some major terrorist ass, as his American friends would say.

  As long as he was alive, his nation wasn’t going to fall to any bunch of thugs. And freeing Cancun was a very good place to start saving Mexico. North American tourism was the lifeblood of Mexico’s economy. Without a steady stream of tourist dollars coming in, the nation would collapse. Considering the blow the resorts had taken from the shutdown of air travel in the aftermath of 9/11, any further erosion of the American traveler’s confidence in Mexico’s safety would be an unmitigated disaster.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Diego Garcia looked up from the paperwork on the desk when his communications officer hurried into his commandeered operations center.

  “Comrade Colonel,” the man said, “we are intercepting tactical radio messages from a Mexican army unit working in the border region. It’s from one of those Ranger units the damned Yankees trained at their School of the Americas. Their commander is refusing to obey his orders from Mexico City to return to their base.”

  “And…?”

  “Somehow they heard about us and they say that they’re moving in to retake Cancun.”

  Diego Garcia pushed his chair back and went to the map tacked up on the wall. “Do they have any helicopters?”

  “We don’t know yet.”

  “Find out!” The Cuban blinked his eyes at the stabbing pain that flashed through his skull. “I must know what I am facing here! A commander must have information before he can make his plans.”

  “As you command, Colonel.” The man hurriedly left.

  Garcia turned back and studied his map. The Cancun peninsula wasn’t only the perfect place to hold hostages, it was also easy to defend. If the Mexican Rangers didn’t have helicopters, they would be forced to try to come across the causeway to get at him, and the bridge was easily defended. Explosive charges had already been placed on the bridge supports and, as a last resort, it could be destroyed.

  He had no doubt that his fighters could hold their positions in Cancun long enough for his other Matador units to solidify their grip on Mexico. The reports from his teams in Panama and neighboring Guatemala indicated that they were also making satisfactory progress. Once everything in those three countries had been secured as required, he could go on to the next phase of the operation and strike directly at the major weakness of the Yankee economy.

  While that part of the plan was going well, he was very concerned that he hadn’t heard back from Elena. He had been a fool to let her go out alone like that, but she had her ways of getting him to agree with whatever she wanted to do. Now that the Mexican army had discovered them, he needed her to help him organize their defense. He called for his security officer.

  “You want me, Chief?” Juan Gomez asked as he walked into the room.

  “Have you heard from Elena?” Garcia asked.

  “No, Sir,” Gomez met his boss’s eyes squarely. “Not since she went out last night.”

  Gomez, having also not heard from Delmonte, figured that the two had somehow crossed paths and killed each other. He would miss Delmonte; he’d been a good man for jobs like that. But if the Martinez bitch was finally dead, it would be a good exchange. Now maybe he could keep Garcia’s mind on the operation at hand.

  “I will tell the patrols to keep a sharp eye out for her, Jefe,” Gomez stated, playing the game.

  “Please do, Comrade.” Garcia’s voice had strangely softened. “She is essential to our success.”

  Gomez sincerely doubted that, but held his tongue. Regardless of his boss’s weakness for women, he was a brilliant revolutionary.

  “Also,” Garcia added, “we have intercepted radio messages from a small Mexican army unit that is moving toward us.”

  Gomez didn’t like that at all. Their takeover of the army headquarters in Mexico City was supposed to have short-stopped that kind of interference. The Matador troops were good men and well trained, but they were lightly armed and not up to fighting regular army units in open battle. “Do we know who they are yet?”

  “One of the units that guard the border with Guatemala. They call themselves the Panther battalion.”

  “That is not good,” Gomez said. “Those units are said to be well trained.”

  “We will be safe here,” Garcia replied. “They wi
ll not dare attack us in force. They know that we are holding hostages against that.”

  Gomez didn’t share his leader’s optimism about the value of the hostages as human shields. “Let me alert our men,” he said. “We can’t always count on the enemy doing what we want them to.”

  “Do that,” the Cuban said. “And let me know the instant you hear from Elena.”

  “As you command.”

  ONCE HIS ORDERS had been issued, Mendez left his senior officer, Captain Stephen Ortega, behind to supervise the load-out, boarded his JetRanger and flew to the designated assembly area east of the village of Cancun. He had the pilot keep low on the approach so they wouldn’t be spotted from the resort area. As he flew over the jungle with the treetops tickling the chopper’s skids, he couldn’t help but notice the overcast, yellow-tinged sky and realize that a storm was moving in. It was rather late in the season for it, but a little bit of a blow wouldn’t be too much of a problem. His men were accustomed to working in any kind of weather. In fact, depending on the situation, a storm delivering blinding rain might even work to his advantage. He’d keep a close eye on it as the situation developed.

  When the pilot reached the cleared farmland to the east of the village, Mendez had him get down even closer to the ground. It had rained recently, so the ground was wet and the rotor blast didn’t throw up a dust cloud. Once they set down, he decided to make a personal recon of the approaches to the bridge.

  “I’m going into the village,” he told the pilot as he unbuckled his seat harness.

  “I’ll go with you, Colonel.” The pilot reached back behind his seat for his weapon.

  “No, Jorge. I want you to stay here and monitor the radios for me. And if I’m not back in an hour, I want you to tell Captain Ortega to do what he thinks is best. But I want those bastards cleaned out of there as soon as possible.”

  The pilot saluted. “As you command, Colonel.”

  As Mendez entered the edge of the village, he was surprised to find it apparently deserted. Absolutely no one was in the streets, and the shutters were closed on all the windows.

  Even though no one moved on the streets, Mendez stayed fully alert and proceeded cautiously. When he reached the lagoon side of the village and saw the two dozen black-clad troops guarding the far end of the causeway, he knew what he was up against. Finding a concealed position, he took out his field glasses for a closer look.

  Through the binoculars, he saw that the gunmen were armed with AKs and RPGs, the standard armament of Marxist insurgents. The machine guns mounted on the open-top SUVs were also Russian made. He could make out what looked to be an 82 mm mortar set up on the other side of the bridge, but that was all he saw in the line of heavy weapons. Fortunately they didn’t seem to have any of the 12.7 mm heavy machine guns the Marxists usually favored, and that was a good thing. Going up against the heavy guns would cost his men dearly.

  After marking the enemy positions on his map, Mendez went back to the assembly area to work up a plan of attack while he awaited the arrival of his troops. His two infantry companies were jungle-infantry armed and totaled about 120 men. He had no idea of the size of the enemy force, but to control the real estate they had taken over, as well as all the tourists, they had to outnumber him badly. If he went by the tactical manual, he was in no position to be making a direct assault.

  The book said that an attacker needed to outnumber the defender by three to one. But the Panther battalion didn’t back off from the odds no matter what. They were accustomed to going up against greater numbers and using their superior fighting skills and tactics to determine the outcome of the battle. He was a realist when it came to combat, but he also knew his people.

  Even so, the plan of attack was going to have to be well thought out so his troops would have the chance to use their superior training to the best advantage. With the bridge being the only conventional axis of advance, he decided to make a feint against it while he tried to move the bulk of his forces across the lagoon somewhere else.

  Though the resort area was a peninsula, in that one end was connected to the mainland, the map indicated that a land neck at the north wasn’t passable for normal traffic. In fact, it showed that the road winding through the broken terrain was more of a donkey trail than something even a four-wheel-drive truck could navigate. Men on foot could walk the trail, though he doubted few locals even bothered and many didn’t even know of the track, which favored what he had in mind.

  Even though his forces were small, Mendez broke them down into even smaller units. They were jungle fighters and were trained to operate in small teams. If he put them out in small groups, he might be able to deceive the enemy into thinking that his forces were larger than they actually were. That kind of deception might not work against regular troops, but these terrorists were likely half-trained bandits as they always were.

  He smiled grimly as he drew avenues of attack on the map with a grease pencil.

  RATHER THAN WAIT for all of his troops to assemble, Mendez took the officer who arrived on the first truck aside and gave him his mission. Lieutenant Simon Villa was what his old American Ranger buddies would have called a “hard charger.” A graduate of the Ranger school himself, Villa was on his way to becoming a legend in counterterrorist jungle warfare. He wore a pair of holstered 9 mm pistols on his field belt, and his men called him Pancho. He was famous for taking on the most daring tasks and somehow pulling them off.

  “Yes, Colonel.” Villa grinned as his operation was explained. “If you can truck us up to here—” his finger stabbed the hills on the map just north of the peninsula “—we should be able to get through there in a little more than an hour. Then, depending on how well the enemy is patrolling the neck, we should be able to either sneak through or blow our way through those bastards in short order.”

  “What I’d rather have you do,” Mendez replied, “is to create a diversion up there for the rest of us. Make them think that you’re the main attack, or at least a flanking attack. Once you’re drawing their attention to the north, I’ll mount another diversion against the bridge and then push the rest of our people across the lagoon to the south.”

  Villa rested his hands on the butts of his two Smith & Wesson semiauto pistols and grinned. “I think we can manage to do that, Colonel.”

  “You’d better be able to, because I don’t have enough men to rescue your young ass if you get into trouble.”

  “That will not happen, Colonel.”

  The second truckload of men arrived just as Villa was moving out with his platoon. These men Mendez sent into the village to secure it and to be the main diversion force that would make the attack against the bridge head.

  “Make sure to keep out of sight,” he told the veteran sergeant in charge. “We have to coordinate your attack at exactly the right time, and I don’t want them to spot you before that.”

  The sergeant turned his eyes skyward. “Make it after the rain starts, Colonel, and they’ll never see us until we’re right on top of them.”

  The troops from the third and fourth truckload would be his main attack.

  “Go down the south shore,” he told Captain Ortega when he arrived, “and see if you can find enough boats that you can use to cross the lagoon. When you find them, let me know and we’ll kick off.”

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  NOW THAT THEY HAD a plan, Bolan, Brognola and de Lorenzo had to wait to see if the Mexican’s prediction of an incoming hurricane would come true. If it did strike, it would provide perfect cover for what they had in mind. If it didn’t, Bolan would still make his solo insertion, but he would wait until dark.

  “Let’s pull back,” he said.

  They were moving away from the hotel when several truckloads of gunman, rocketed down the main boulevard toward the south end of town.

  “I wonder what that’s all about?” Brognola asked.

  “They’re sure as hell excited about something,” de Lorenzo said.

  “Since we’re wait
ing for the big blow to hit, why don’t we head back down there to see what’s going on?” Bolan suggested. “We might be able to pick up a few targets of opportunity.”

  The three went into the maze of smaller shops and bars on the lagoon side of the peninsula and headed south toward the causeway. At the main intersection south of the jail, they spotted a sandbagged position manned by a squad covering the road from the bridge. It was apparent that something had stirred the hornet’s nest. The gunmen were alert behind their barricade as if they expected to see the enemy come charging across the bridge to assault their position at any moment.

  “Those boys are nervous,” Brognola observed. “Something big’s going down.”

  “Whatever it is,” Bolan replied, “I think we can give them something more to worry about to raise their stress level a little. You two keep my butt clear, and I’ll see about doing a little ankle-biting.”

  Bolan’s H&K wasn’t particularly suited for sniper work, but he’d worked with worse and he did have a plus-two optical battle scope mounted on the weapon.

  After Brognola and de Lorenzo were in place to cover his withdrawal, Bolan slowly worked his way forward and found a covered position 150 yards short of the barricade. With the enemy all dressed more or less the same, he couldn’t tell who the group’s leader was, so he chose a target at random and squeezed off a single shot.

  A well-placed 5.56 mm round to the head produced spectacular results. The gunman’s head appeared to explode in a cloud of red.

  His comrades reacted instantly and started off-loading ammunition at anything they could see. An RPG gunner popped up, a grenade ready in his launcher as he frantically looked for the sniper.

  Rather than target the gunner, Bolan zeroed in on the rocket in the front of the launcher and fired again. The detonation of the warhead ripped through the gunmen, slashing them with red-hot frag.

  Instead of remaining where he was and taking out the rest of the squad, Bolan withdrew before he was spotted. After rejoining Brognola and de Lorenzo, the three went to find another group of terrorists to harass.