Countdown: M Day

by Tom Kratman

  Joshua chuckled. “I told him fuck what he thinks he’s been through. I told him that I’ve lost friends, and that he would either do what you said, and make it good, or I would build a large wooden cross and nail him to it, then wait for him to die.”

  “Jesus!” the Chief of Staff exclaimed, not without a certain admiration “Stauer was right, way back in Brazil. You are descended from some Roman centurion.”

  The sergeant major nodded seriously. “On both sides, I suspect. God knows, my mother was even more of a hard ass than my father. Damned if I know how any of my ancestors ended up as slaves in what became the U.S. Virgin Islands.”

  “Just lucky, I guess, like old Buckwheat Fulton.”

  Joshua smiled, though there was tinge of sadness to it. “Ah, Buckwheat. Now there was a fine soldier.”

  “Yes,” Boxer agreed, equally sadly, “yes, he was. On which note, the weasel left us some scotch. Sergeant Major, Corporal Hosein, Mrs. Corrigan, let us have a drink—maybe two or three—to the memory of a good man and a helluva soldier.”

  Miraflores Palace, Caracas, Venezuela

  Chavez knew he had a tendency to engage his mouth before his brain was fully in gear. He knew, and tried to combat it …sometimes, anyway. Now? Now he just wasn’t sure enough of the whys of the thing to comment.

  “How many internet sites are hosting this thing? And how many news networks are covering it?”

  “Even FOX, in the United States, isn’t bothering to cover this, Mr. President,” Hugo’s flack-in-chief, said. “Too much of a fait accompli, really for them to bother. Guyana ranks somewhere below the Marshall Islands in importance, as far as the gringos are concerned. As for websites, fifty to sixty sites, Mr. President, from Afreeca to Zoopy.”

  Chavez asked, “Can we shut down those sites?”

  The flack shrugged. “Some of them, Mr. President, we could. Youtube, in particular, has a reputation for bending over under pressure. However, not all will. And I’d recommend against shutting down any. It would just be free advertising for the video. As is, it matters little. Advertised? Well, it wouldn’t be to our betterment.”

  Hugo nodded. Okay, I think I can see that. I may not like it, but I can see it.

  “Besides which, Mr. President, your personal popularity is up over eighty-seven percent over your actions in Guyana. And that was from an honest poll.”

  Which is why, Chavez thought, smiling broadly, I launched this thing.

  “What about this letter of marque bullshit?”

  Chavez’s legal advisor stood and began a tedious and lengthy lecture on the legality of letters of marque, the nature of sovereignty, the possibly dubious nature of a declaration of war issued by the chief of a democratic state without legislative approval, the probable legitimacy of said president acting in defense of his country’s sovereignty, even without that legislative approval, the law of the sea as concerned privateering and piracy and …

  “Shut the fuck up,” Hugo said, waving his right hand, palm out, the heel resting on the table. The gesture meant the same thing. Once the lawyer had, he said, “Just tell me what it might mean.”

  “Private vessels can attack our shipping. And the one power that really matters, the United States, still allows letters of marque and reprisal. In theory, anyway.”

  “What do you mean, the gringos are the only ones that matter?”

  Admiral Fernandez took that question. “He means, sir, that the United States Navy, alone, can take on all the rest of the world’s navies, together, and probably win. And that’s without recourse to nuclear weapons, too, or even recalling any of their mothballed ships or reservists. At sea, they’re that powerful. The British Empire, in its glory days, never presumed to be able to fight more than the second and third naval powers at once. America, however, considers that to be unacceptable passivity and overconfidence. They insist of being able to take on the whole world at sea.”

  Chavez scowled. Fucking gringos.

  “Okay, so they could attack our shipping. But we don’t really have much shipping of our own,” the president objected.

  “They could, in theory, still blockade our ports. That …man said neutral shipping has seventy-two hours to vacate our ports.”

  Chavez turned his attention back to Admiral Fernandez. “Can anyone do that, as a practical matter? Any civilian, I mean.”

  Fernandez shook his head. “Can’t see how, Mr. President. Pure bluster. We’ve got quite a nice little surface and submarine fleet again. No civilian ship is going to want to take it on. Besides, blockades to be binding must be effective.” Fernandez snorted. “They couldn’t mount an effective boycott, let alone a blockade.”

  The admiral’s enthusiasm, and he did sound enthusiastic, was somewhat feigned. After succeeding in this, Chavez, you baboon, we’ll never get rid of you, will we? I suppose I’d best get used to it.

  Naughtius Base, Waini River, Guyana

  The sun beat down mercilessly on the trees overhead. That it didn’t quite reach the hidden shelters had the effect of turning a frying pan into an oven. From the chicken’s point of view, of course, that wasn’t much of an improvement.

  Biggus Dickus Thornton wiped sweat from his brow. No matter, it was instantly replaced. Getting old for this shit, he thought.

  The decoded message sat on a field table next to a chart of the local waters, all the way to the mouth of the Orinoco Rover. Biggus Dickus had studied the chart so long and so closely that he thought he could probably draw it from memory.

  The river’s got hundreds of mouths but only seven really matter, and of those seven, we could block them all by mining just two small stretches further in. Of course, I’m not exactly enthused about trying to get that far inland in the Naughtius. So …I’m thinking four M-70’s and six 240mm shells in the Rio Grande, stretch, east of Curiapo. Then maybe two and three southeast of the San Francisco de Guaya Mission. Then one and three northeast of Jotajana. And another one, plus three 240mm, southeast of La Esperanza.

  That leaves us two M-70’s and nine shells. Maybe we use them to reseed the Orinoco—though going blind into a river we’ve mined is …fuck that; ain’t happening. The ones we put out work or they don’t. We’re not going back up that river. So, no, after we finish the Orinoco, we’ll use what’s left further out. He glanced down at the situation summary then began his orders.

  And our orders are to begin laying them in—Thornton checked his watch—thirty-seven hours, and set the timers to arm forty-eight hours after laying. Best to put the boys to sleep now, minus a lookout, so they’ll be fresh tomorrow night.

  MV Maria Walewska, Puerto Cabello, Guyana

  With the excuse of her purely spurious engine problems, the captain had had the Countess towed to the maintenance facilities down by the southeast arm of the port. This was not a disadvantage; when you really want to close a port down, it’s not a bad thing to mine it from one side to the other. And for the transverse arms, of which there were arguably four, they had another trick.

  “Are we cleared to leave, Captain Chin?” Kosciusko asked.

  The Chinese seaman nodded. “I terr Po’t Autholity boys we got engine fixed up good enough and want get out before brockade happen.”

  “What did they say about that?”

  “They laugh. Terr me I wolly about nothin’. Hah! They in for big fuckin’ supliz, heheh. You want get tlebuchet put together now?”

  “Not just yet, Skipper. Have your wife move the ‘lumber’ container to where we can get at it, yes, and put up the cavity around where we want to build it. And she can start moving the mines. But let’s wait for dark to actually rebuild the trebuchet.”

  Coco Point Airfield, Isla del Rey, Panama

  The airfield ran east-northeast to west-southwest. Jutting out from it, and nearer to the sea, was a sort of a D-shaped taxiway, flattened at one end. The cops who’d eventually showed up insisted on the two planes being moved there.

  “We need to keep the runway clear, señor,” the senior co
p had said, over beer. “Besides,” he added with a wink, “it’s a lot easier loading from there, no?”

  The senior pilot of the four had winked back. “Of course. Yes. Thank you.” And if he thinks we’re running drugs, and has no problem with that, who am I to correct him?

  There, at the curved part of the taxiway, so close to the sea that one could almost jump from a wingtip into it, the two crews had gotten in a little fishing, a little snorkeling, and a whole lot bored.

  The loadmaster, a Sergeant Lindell, stuck his head into the cockpit. “I put in the call to Leo,” he said to the captain and pilot. The latter was going over charts, doing some pencil drilling, and punching flight data and locations into his navigation set.

  The pilot, looking up from his charts, asked, “Any problems?

  “Nah. As long as we’ve got the money his brother in law will deliver. But he’s coming along to make sure.”

  “Tell him to bring some fucking iced beer, too. Preferably XX, since the local stuff is mostly piss.”

  “Already thought of that, sir,” the loadmaster answered, with a chuckle. “Leo says, ‘no sweat.’ And gratis, no less. We go back to First Battalion, we do, before I got just too damned old for it and shipped over. Good troops, he is.”

  The chief seemed to be pondering something for a brief moment. “You want we should start assembling the mines …oh, and testing the real mines.”

  The pilot thought about that. Why not? The local police came by and left, much happier and not a little richer, without caring a damned thing for what we were carrying except that we had beer

  Finally, he nodded. “Yeah, start getting them ready. Inside the aircraft. Do not start the timers. Wait on setting the counting devices until we assemble them in the order we’re planning to drop them. And you may as well get the roll-out platform assembled on the deck.”

  “Wilco, sir.”

  The chief turned to go but stopped when the pilot called out, “Hey, can Leo bring us some food? I am sick to death of packaged rations.”

  “He thought of that, too. His wife’s making up a special batch of empañadas for us. Oh, and some fried chicken and such.”

  “Good man.”

  The far recognition signal was a call on a cell phone. The near one wasn’t really needed, since the approaching boat was blaring out Leon Russell at volume.

  “Hey, Leo, dude, ain’t seen you in fuckin’ years! And how’d you get the eight track fixed?”

  “Tim! Bubba!” Ross shouted, jumping into the surf from the puttering boat, holding itself against the seashore by engine power. Behind him, he dragged a rope. This he tied off on a nearby tree before running to meet Lindell. Then came a small orgy of hand shaking, back slapping, and “hey whatever happened to?” reunionizing.

  Ross turned away, shouting something in Spanish to the captain of the boat. The engine cut out almost immediately.

  “Be right back,” Leo said to Lindell, the turned and waded out about two thirds of the way to the boat. There the captain, and presumably his brother in law, met him, passing over one end of a length of garden hose.

  “I got three hundred feet of this crap,” Leo shouted over the sounds of the surf. “Think it’ll be enough?”

  “It will,” Lindell replied. “At least while high tide lasts it will. I paced it off.”

  Leo turned around, saying over one shoulder, “Great. Now, how about you run this to your tank, then give me a shout so I can tell my brother-in-law to start pumping?”

  “Wilco, bubba …Hey, what about the food and beer.”

  “That’s what I’m going back for, dummy!”

  Wineperu, Guyana

  For whatever reasons—and Boxer thought it was that the Venezuelans were having some serious maintenance backlog back at base—Corporal Hosein wasn’t molested on his drive from Camp Fulton to the wrecked naval base. The fact that he’d driven entirely at night probably helped, even if it hadn’t guaranteed it.

  And I’m not too sure that driving without headlights is necessarily any safer than with headlights and risking being bombed. Course, I’m not sure it isn’t, either, and safety wasn’t the point, anyway.

  Hosein arrived just before sun up, and the rosy-fingered bitch, “the child of morning,” was just about to peek over the horizon. He’d learned, since joining the regiment, that this was called “BMNT.”

  He called out for Morales and Simmons. When that didn’t work immediately he explained, “It’s just me, guys. The colonel sent me to get you but he had to stay behind.”

  “Oh,” said Simmons. “In that case, here I am. Hey, Che, get your lazy ass up.”

  Hosein had to really peer closely in the direction of the voice before he could just barely make out a human silhouette. “How’d you do that?” he asked.

  “Training,” Simmons answered, as if that explained everything.

  Well …maybe it does, thought Hosein.

  “The colonel sent me to get you and bring you back to camp. No, I don’t know why. Something about a ‘special mission,’ that’s all I know.”

  “Maaannn,” Morales began a gripe. “It’s not our fault the sub sank. And we’ve almost got it recovered.” He flicked his head toward the river. “C’mon, take a look.”

  Shrugging, Hosein followed along. It was getting lighter by the minute. By the time they reached the water’s edge, he could see well enough to make out a single tripod, built of logs, sticking up out of the water. A taut cable ran from a shackle near the top of the tripod into the stream. He thought, but couldn’t be sure, that he could make out a faintly bullet-like object outline just below the surface.

  “I’m impressed,” Hosein agreed. “Makes not a shit of difference, though; the colonel sent me to get you. And the RSM said something about ‘dead or alive.’”

  “Ah,” Morales replied. “In that case, give us five minutes to pack.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  My logisticians are a humorless lot …they know

  if my campaign fails, they are the first ones I will slay.

  —Alexander the Great (attributed)

  Cheddi Jagan Airport, Guyana

  A single plane, an Airbus-319, empty but for a trivial number of casualties, most of those the result of accidents, lumbered down the runway. Even nearly empty, there wasn’t a lot of asphalt left before its wheels lifted off.

  That was, of course, Chavez’s private plane, having come to deliver the great man for a tour of “the front,” and with room enough for a minimal entourage and, most importantly, a news team with video equipment. The fuel spent getting there was enough to allow it to leave again with those mostly walking wounded.

  Larralde looked down at the medal on his chest, just pinned there that afternoon.

  Sergeant Major Arrivillaga sneered, then looked at his own new medal and sneered again. “That, and about twenty Bolivars might get us each a cup of decent coffee,” he said.

  “You sound bitter, Mao,” Larralde observed, carefully keeping his own bitterness out of his voice.

  “Bitter? Me? Bitter? Oh, I’m not bitter …I’m …” Mao went into a furious tirade. “Our armed forces has grand total of forty-three transport aircraft, some of them quite light. I can list them for you, since I’ve jumped most of them, at one time or another: Four C-130’s, one of them supporting the troops at Kaieteur Falls, two Shorts, ten Beechcraft, five of them Army, eight Israeli Arava, a dozen Polish Skytrucks, three Boeings, two of them only good for fuel, two Dessaults, one Fairchild and …and that!” He pointed in the Airbus’ direction. “And that represents better than ten percent of the practical airlift we have. But is it bringing in more troops? No. Food and ammunition? No. Fuel? Spare parts?Medical supplies? No. No. No. How about some vehicles, so we can support ourselves when we finally get off our asses and move off this fucking airstrip? Again, no.”

  “Ah, cheer up, Mao. You always were too pessimistic. We’ve got better than half the brigade here now.”

  “Yes, we do,” Arrivillag
a agreed, nodding deeply. “Finally. After about a week. And you know what, sir? With the air force showing up, giving number one priority to their overfed ‘needs,’ that’s all we’re likely to have, too. And we’re going to sit here for lack of vehicles and lack of fuel to move them if we had them.”

  Larralde blew air. “I know. Our job was to get us here and get the airport. We did that, pretty much bloodlessly. Well …bloodlessly for us, anyway. Our vehicles were supposed to come by air but almost all our supply was supposed to come by sea. As is, until the navy gets the ports unfucked, supply has to come by air, and there’s no room for the vehicles.”

  “There might be,” Arrivillaga cursed, “if Hugo would forego his flying bordello.”

  “Oh, c’mon. You were on that plane, too, getting decorated. There wasn’t a whore in sight, just that older …”

  “Like I told you, sir, Hugo doesn’t like them too pretty.”

  Larralde did a double take. “You told me?”

  Mao ignored that as too inconvenient to deal with. Instead he continued with his general theme. “Or maybe the general staff would get off its collective ass and charter some planes.”

  Arrivillaga stopped speaking. He’d caught sight of two of the troops, wandering off together and trying to look nonchalant about it. “Ah, fuggit.” He stood up, abruptly. “Out of my pay grade anyway. But young Vargas and Villareal, though they don’t know it yet, have just volunteered for shit burning detail. Seeing to that will make me feel a lot better …and it’s within my pay grade.”

  Georgetown, Guyana

  If “mass” could be defined as a couple of thousand, then there was a “mass rally” by the statue of Cuffy, at Square of the Revolution. Besides banners saying things like, “Viva la Revolucion,” and “Socialism or Death,” there were a fair number of Venezuelan flags being waved in among the crowd.