by Tom Kratman
“Sergeant Major Arrivillaga”—sigh—“Call your cousin”—sigh—“Set it up”—sigh—“and I’ll do the best I can.”
“See?” Arrivillaga said. “I told you that you were one of the better ones. Though I’ll still deny in public that I ever said anything remotely like that.”
“No doubt,” Larralde agreed, as he laced up his boot. “And now, since you have so much energy, let’s run in place while we wait for the rest of the company to catch up.”
“Dirty bastards,” a still pale Lily Vargas muttered under her breath as she strained forward and upward under the weight of a heavy pack.
“What’s that, Lily?” Carlos Villareal asked, his head slumped down facing the dirt of the road they both trod.
“Up there, on the hill,” she answered, pointing with her chin. “That son of a bitch, Larralde, and that asshole, Arrivillaga, are mocking us. Don’t they know how damned sick and weak we still are?”
Miraflores Palace, Caracas, Venezuela
It was a week before Larralde thought he had “his ducks in order” enough to risk trying to persuade Chavez. He’d taken a short pass and flown to Caracas from Ciudad Bolivar, just in time to shower up, change into dress uniform, and catch a taxi to the Palace. He was met there by a tall woman, who bore no visible relationship to his second sergeant major.
“You’re Mao Arrivillaga’s cousin?” Larralde asked, wide-eyed and incredulous. “But …”
“He took after one of our grandfathers,” answered Marielena Arrivillaga—tall, shapely, and very, very pretty, with large eyes, high cheekbones, and an essentially perfect nose. She shrugged and added, “I took after one of our grandmothers. Why, what were you expecting?”
Larralde shook his head, dumbly, while thinking, I was not expecting a potential contender for Miss Venezuela. Then again, I suppose Hugo is the president and is entitled to first pick.
“I am not, by the way, despite whatever my cousin may think or may have told you, Hugo’s mistress. I’m his secretary and that’s all I am.”
“But …” Larralde objected, “but you’re so …”
The woman shook her head. “Hugo doesn’t really like them all that good looking.” She shook her head again, as if puzzled. “I’m not sure why. But really; his ideal woman is a peasant girl, a little thick through the middle, and with, at most, a mildly pretty mestiza face. Sometimes I think the reason I got this job is because he knew I was too good looking—that’s not vanity; facts are facts—above all too Euro looking, to interest him, so he could be sure I’d work for him rather than use him for a sinecure.”
“How very …”
“Odd?” she asked. “You don’t know the half of it, Captain.” She turned away, at the same time asking over her shoulder, “And now, if you’ll follow me?”
As Larralde watched the gently swaying form precede him, he thought, I’m glad you said ‘follow me,’ because I couldn’t ‘walk this’ …err … that ‘way’ if my life depended on it.
“Señor Presidente,” Marielena announced, after cracking the thick wooden door, “Captain Larralde is here to see you. He has an appointment.”
“Show the captain in,” Chavez said. Marielena opened the door just enough for easy passage, waited for Larralde to pass, then closed it again behind him.
Once inside, Larralde saw his president, half hidden behind the papers piled on his desk. He stood to attention and saluted, stiffly, which salute Chavez returned just as formally. Once Larralde had dropped his and returned to the position of attention, Chavez stood, walked around, thrust out his hand, and said, “Welcome. My secretary told me you had something important to say and she thought I should see you. What is it? A coup?”
Larralde shook the president’s hand, answering, “No, sir, not a coup. At least, not as far as I know. It’s about the upcoming, um, operation.” Larralde looked around furtively, as if seeking eavesdroppers or even listening devices.
“You can speak freely here, Captain,” Chavez insisted. “If my office is bugged and I don’t know about it, we’re screwed anyway.” Chavez pointed to a couple of seats separated by a low end table. “Sit. Speak,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” Larralde answered. He sat, placed his briefing on his lap, and waited for Chavez to likewise sit. That didn’t happen. Instead the president parked his posterior on the edge of his desk, folded his arms, and looked down at the captain, repeating, “Speak.”
Larralde gulped. He hadn’t realized it until just then, but he’d been counting on the formality of his briefing to act as a sort of shield. And he wasn’t going to get to use it as a shield.
“Speak,” Chavez repeated.
It all came out in a rush. “Mr. President, I don’t know every aspect of the upcoming operation. I only know my unit’s part of it. And we’re screwed. I mean without grease and without being kissed afterwards. There is no chance, Mr. President, not even a tiny one, of us being able to take a bunch of city boys and girls, train them to soldier, train them to jump, and then actually jump on even an unsuspecting and unresisting objective. Not in the time we have. No chance, sir. We’ll defeat ourselves and won’t need an enemy for the process. It’ll be a catastrophe. The whole country will be a laughingstock. And anyone who’s been telling you otherwise is either a liar or an ignoramus. Sir, it’sjustnotpossible!”
It was that “liar or ignoramus” line that caused Chavez to even consider the rest of what Larralde had to say, since those sentiments meshed with his own opinions of the general staff to a T. He sneered and, for a moment, Larralde thought the sneer was directed at him.
“You have a better plan, I take it?” Chavez asked.
“I have a plan that has a chance, sir.”
“Okay, you have my ear, Captain. What’s this great plan of yours?”
Larralde opened the folder on his lap and pulled out a map and a sketch. The rest of the folder he closed and placed on the table next to him. Then he slid forward to place one knee on the floor and began to spread the map out. Beside it he put the sketch.
Curiosity piqued, Chavez unfolded his arms, lifted his rear end from the desk, and took the couple of steps needed to place him standing over the map.
Larralde looked up and said, “The key points, Mr. President, are that a) we can’t jump and b) we really don’t have to.”
“Do you have any idea of how much trouble you’re in for jumping your chain of command?” the president asked.
“Yes, sir,” the captain admitted, “I’ve got some little idea of that. I figure I’m going to end up as assistant division vector control officer. Or worse.”
“So what made you do it?”
“Couple of reasons, sir. For one, I hate to lose. I really hate to lose. For another …well …the kids I’m supposed to command deserve better than to be wrecked before they even fight. It’s not their fault they’ll still half-civilian.”
Chavez sat down on the floor next to the map and asked, “You don’t happen to have a cigarette, do you, Captain?”
Larralde reached into a pocket and pulled out a pack of Belmonts. These he handed over before reaching for his lighter.
“I try to cut down by usually not having any around,” Chavez explained, puffing the thing to life. “But I’m still addicted to the motherfuckers. Okay, now explain to me again, everything from your proposed training program to boarding at Ciudad Bolivar to securing Cheddi-Jagan to vectoring in the follow-on flights …”
The pack of Belmonts had just about run dry before Chavez leaned back, away from the map. “Okay, Major,” he said, “you’ve sold me. But we’ve still got the problem of you and that slot as vector control officer that has your name written all over it. So here’s what I propose:
“You’re going back to your battalion, tonight. In three days, I’m going to show up for an unannounced inspection. I will insist on an operational and training briefing. Your battalion will fail, badly. I will then relieve your battalion commander and most of his staff. Maybe brigade, too. I will
look around the room carefully and my eye will alight on you. You must look confident when I do. I will then assign you to command the battalion. And—”
“—Did you say ‘Major,’ sir?” Larralde interrupted.
“Shut up and listen,” Chavez answered. “And I will promote you to major on the spot. I will then give you back pretty much exactly the plan you’ve just given me. You will express your doubts but end with, ‘I’ll try, Mr. President.’ I shall, of course, say, ‘You’ll do better than try, Larralde; you’ll succeed.’
“Now, is there anyone in that battalion you absolutely want to get rid of or keep?”
As he found himself doing more and more of late, Larralde sighed. “The battalion commander doesn’t deserve relief, Mr. President. And the staff’s basically decent.”
“Then why didn’t one of them come to me?”
“Mr. President,” Larralde answered, “if my second sergeant major hadn’t had a connection to you, I wouldn’t have come to you either.”
“A connection?”
Larralde made a torso-waist-hip wavy motion with one hand.
“Ohhh …Marielena. When you get back would you please tell Mao that I am not fucking his cousin. For one thing, she’s just the wrong …type for me. I’d feel self conscious.”
“Yes, sir,” Larralde agreed, “I’ll do that.” And I’m not about to ask how you know my second sergeant major. “In any case, sir, Coronel Sanchez doesn’t deserve relief. Neither does his staff.”
“So what do you propose then?”
Larralde went silent for a moment, thinking hard. At length he answered, “Taking the airfield is really only a job for one company. Sure, it needs to be a bigger company than mine is but, still, just a company. If you really want me to lead this, detach me and the company from the battalion and give me first picks on drafting in some fillers. I’d need some anyway, if only for the airfield control party and engineers. You don’t even need to promote me for that. And I can fall back in on the battalion after it finishes forming at the airport.”
“You turning the promotion down?” Chavez asked.
“I’m saying it can wait, Mr. President. Anyway, you do everything up to relieving anyone. Chew ass as much as you’re comfortable with. Then you order me detached and direct that I get priority on anything I need. With that, I can get you that airfield.”
Chavez smiled. “And so all this remains our little secret then?”
“God, I hope so, Mr. President.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Time spent on reconnaissance
is seldom wasted.
—British Army Field Service Regulations, 1912
Riohacha, Colombia
The city of about one hundred thousand had an interesting history, having been founded, improbably enough, by a German conquistador, Nickolaus Federmann, repetitively sacked by pirates, to include Sir Francis Drake, been a prime revolutionary recruiting ground for sailors to fight against Spain, and lately a port in the drug trade between Colombia, North America, and Europe. About the city’s history neither Ryan nor Bronto cared a whit. All that mattered to them was that it was big enough to procure several safe houses, cosmopolitan enough for a team selected mostly based on swarthiness to blend in, and close enough to—in fact, on—a beach to facilitate above- and underwater operations. Though it wasn’t a particularly touristy place, the beach on which the city fronted was still half-crowded with people, fully half of them women. They were very ostentatiously women, as a matter of fact.
“Sergeant Ryan,” said Bronto, tightening his harness, “I don’t see the point. We can’t swim to Puerto Fijo or Maracaibo from here. The SeaBobs won’t range nearly that far, not a quarter that far, even with the extra battery packs. And even if we could or they would, we don’t have anything—not so much as a firecracker—to do anything on the far side, anyway.”
“Have a little faith, Bronto,” Ryan answered, as he likewise donned his scuba gear. “What we need will be provided.”
“‘The check’s in the mail,’” the diminutive diver recited, his eyes rolling. “‘I’ll meet you halfway. It’s already laid on …’”
“‘And I won’t come in your mouth,’” Ryan finished, as he tugged at his Henderson Titanium tropical wetsuit. “Even so, the Namu, which Terry and von Ahlenfeld probably could use for the contract mission, isn’t going to them. And Namu can range. Our job, for now, is just recon, in part to see if we can effectively base Namu out of here, since good recon also includes the approach and the assembly area. So stop bitching and stand up where I can check your gear. You’re too fucking short for me to bend that far without risking a back injury.”
Bronto stood up. Not that it makes all that much difference, Ryan thought, as he bent at the waist to visually inspect.
“And another thing,” the short ex-Green Beret said, flicking his chin in the direction of the sun, “I don’t like doing this in the daytime.”
“So you think we should do this at night?” Ryan asked. “When we’d be the only ones on the beach? And obvious as tits on a bull? When we’re going to have to do it more than once?”
“Well, since you put it that way …um …no.”
“And look at the bright side,” the team leader added. “In the daytime you can see the girls strutting their stuff.”
“There is that,” Bronto conceded, his wandering eye taking in a trio of brown-skinned beauties in butt floss and bikini tops that were very nearly not there.
“Funny there aren’t any topless beaches here,” Bronto said.
“Pretty Catholic place, Colombia,” Ryan replied. “Or, at least, they tend to follow the forms. And get your eyes off of those girls; they’re too young for you.”
Bronto looked highly skeptical. “You sure? What’s the age of consent?”
“Here? Fourteen, and they’re still too young for you.”
Bronto did a double take of the girls. “Less than fourteen? No fucking way.”
“Less than fourteen,” Ryan confirmed. “And you do not want to spend time in a Colombian prison. Though at least you would be safe there from me, because if you compromise the mission by getting arrested for fucking a child, I will shoot you.
Holding his hands up defensively, Bronto said, “No problem, Sarge. I like women, not children.” Bronto shook his head, then picked up his SeaBob and fins and began walking across the hot sand to the water.
“But, Jesus; under fourteen? That’s just wrong on so many levels.”
Puerto Cabello, Venezuela
Sunglasses added five or ten years to Lada’s apparent age.
Morales and Lada stepped out through the Posada Santa Margarita’s gold-framed, studded, white double door and turned east, toward that part of the port devoted to maintenance. Morales walked on the right, next to some little projections rising from the curb that reminded him of nothing so much as hitching posts for Shetland Ponies. Small Shetland Ponies.
The former SEAL wore local dress, which was nothing too very different from his native Puerto Rico …or Florida, for that matter. Likewise, Lada wore conservative local dress for respectable women—which was a lot more concealing than the Floridian norm, and without any jewelry that might tempt a thief. Her hair was naturally dark and she wore brown contacts to color her bright blue eyes in case she had to doff the sunglasses. Normally milk-white, her skin was artificially well tanned; hopefully it was well tanned enough not to excite or invite comment from the locals. She’d put on a much oversized bra, and stuffed it well, on the theory that most men would never raise their eyes from her chest long enough to make a good identification of her face or to notice that her tan was a chemically acquired tone. Along with sunglasses to add to her age, she wore a broad, woven hat.
Her parasol, of course, was collapsed and partially disassembled, sitting the bottom of her suitcase. It just wouldn’t do to be carrying around their only satellite capable antenna.
“Those are mostly Russian workers around the ships,” Lada said, as sh
e and Morales sat on a bench and watched some fairly large crews working diligently at two frigates marked “F-23” and “F-24.” They’d already identified the other four frigates, as well as the three “PORVEEs” already purchased from Spain, as still tied up to the military quay to the west.
“How do you know?” Morales asked, hastily adding, “Not that I don’t believe you.”
“It’s how we walk,” she answered. “Rather, it’s how we carry ourselves when we walk …as if we still had the burden of Mongols, Tsars, Bolsheviks, Nazis, and—now—organized crime perched on our shoulders. Nobody else has quite that burden of historic misery, though perhaps no one but ourselves can see it. They’re Russians, all right.”
Morales nodded, “Like I said, Lada, I believe you. Right now I’m trying to figure out how I know that that ship is about two hundred percent more ready for war than it was the last time we were here.”
The Russian woman shrugged. “Can’t help you. Not my specialty.”
“It is mine, or a part of mine. Last time Boxer accepted our judgment because it’s easier to accept decay and rot than it is to accept ‘Bristol fashion.’ This time, he’s going to want more to go on.”
“Well …I don’t know how you can tell any better, Ernesto,” she replied. Lada rarely, if ever, used his team name. “It’s not like you can get inside to do an inspection of the electronics.”
“That is one thing I can tell him,” Morales said. He gave a subtle little flick of his finger in the direction of the dry dock. Among other things present were half a dozen absolutely huge rolls of electronic wiring. “All that cable out there isn’t there for no reason. And the rolls are about a quarter empty, so they are putting it into the ships.”
“Okay,” Lada said, dropping into something like coaching mode, “what else?”
