Rules of War

by Matthew Betley

  Wednesday, 0200 Venezuelan Standard Time

  Lieutenant General Cordones ended the call after trying to reach the Russian Spetsnaz colonel for the third time in the last hour. His aide had awakened him per his very specific instructions once the aide had seen the breaking news story on Globovision, Venezuela’s 24-hour news network.

  Cameras and cell phones from across the city had captured a fire at the top of the hotel, as well as a helicopter circling the area for several minutes before landing and leaving the mountain. As soon as he’d seen the footage in his command post office, he’d summoned his communications officer and asked him to scan all local police and SEBIN networks they listened to, but after an hour, the seasoned major had come back with nothing to report. There’d been no police or military operation on the mountain, at least none that had been officially sanctioned, he’d thought at the moment.

  Since then, he’d tried unsuccessfully to reach Grigori, and after the latest attempt, he accepted the fact that the Spetsnaz unit—or at least Grigori, at a minimum—had been removed from the field of play. By whom and why, he had no idea, but it was irrelevant. All that mattered was that Grigori had ensured that the Spetsnaz soldiers knew the time and route tomorrow for the vice president’s convoy—the one that I gave them, for this precise reason. It was the bait that he’d planted at the hotel, a diversionary tactic he’d thought was a bit of overkill at the time. But here he was, in the middle of the night, thanking his methodical training and preparation for anticipating the possibility that the mountaintop communications team might be compromised.

  He stood outside the entrance to his command post and stared at the black forest that encircled the plateau, breathing deeply and calmly as he listened to the cacophony of night sounds—the insects, the predators, the prey, the rustling of leaves—allowing it to calm his mind. The animals in the forest had adapted to the military installation, learning to stay away from the men with guns. He’d heard an occasional jaguar, but the big cats were smart, not suicidal.

  Victor was confident that any trespassers—feline or human—would be dealt with quickly by the reinforced platoon of special forces soldiers he’d personally selected for the mission from the 509th Special Operations Battalion. Not only lethal experts in jungle warfare, they’d trained for months in the shoot house on the plateau, honing their close-quarter combat skills to a razor’s edge. And tomorrow will be the first time they get to cut into the corrupt flesh at the top of the country’s ladder.

  In moments like this, his mind wandered to his lost son, a fresh stab of suffering and grief breaking over him in soul-crushing waves. But then he focused, breathed deeply, and exhaled, numbing the pain with the knowledge that by tomorrow afternoon, the political landscape of the country of Venezuela would be changed forever. Once he had the vice president secure, the rest would fall into place.

  By this time tomorrow, I may be alive, I may be with my son, but no matter what, Venezuela will be better off than it is at this moment.

  He looked up at the night sky, the stars burning brightly in the clear air, said a small prayer, and turned back to the barracks building that housed his quarters.

  Tomorrow would be a trying day, and every minute of rest mattered, especially when he didn’t know when the next sleep would come, and when it did, whether it would be the long, dark one.

  CHAPTER 19

  Caracas–La Guaira Highway

  0900 Venezuelan Standard Time

  “Tell me again, are you sure of this, Jack?” Logan asked the barrel-chested former Marine Corps commandant who stood next to him. The two men stared down the side of the multitiered dirt-road hill above the curve in the Caracas–La Guaira Highway just below them. The morning traffic had lightened between Caracas and the main port of La Guaira, but vehicles sped past in both directions, oblivious to the men above them who plotted impending chaos. “This is the only lead we’ve had, and you know it. All we got from the Russian was a time and that the vice president is being transported via convoy along this route.”

  The portion of the highway before them was shaped like a question mark that lay flat on the ground, bracketed at both ends of the two-thirds-of-a-mile-long section by two tunnels. The short one to their right led east to the port, and the longer one to their left past the curve ran due south for more than a mile toward Caracas. The section between the tunnels was a natural choke point, if they successfully blocked off the four tunnel entrances.

  “That’s partially true,” Jack Longstreet replied. “You have the time right. It’s going to happen in ten minutes, but the how is what you have wrong because it’s what the vice president and General Cordones want you to believe. This is the only way to get to Caracas from the Caribbean, at least without drawing attention.”

  “Your source had better be correct, or our last lead is going to be a dead end,” Logan said, an edge to his voice. It’d been less than three weeks since he’d found out that his onetime mentor had executed the director of the National Security Agency in a brazen attack on the Baltimore–Washington Parkway. The fact that Marine Corps General Taylor was a true traitor to his flag and country was the only thing that had spared Jack from the president’s wrath. That and the fact that he’s been helping you since. He owes you for Ramadi, and he knows it.

  “I’m one hundred percent confident in my source, Logan. Trust me on this one. It’s personal for him, and he actually wants the vice president dead. Like I told you last night, this country is dying, and the people are bleeding out on the streets, literally and figuratively. You’ve seen the stories: the government and military are in bed with the cartels and organized crime lords, and the good General Cordones is using both of them for his own means,” Jack said.

  “In exactly eight minutes from now, a three-vehicle military convoy is going to travel west out of that tunnel. It’s the decoy, intended to draw people like us to it like lemmings to a cliff.”

  “You got something against small, cute rodents?” Logan interrupted, even as his mind evaluated the approaching storm.

  “I thought John was the funny one,” Jack shot back. “Now shut up and listen,” he added with a tinge of impatience. “Less than a minute behind the convoy will be a dark-green Land Rover with tinted windows. It’s being driven by three members of a local cartel that’s part of the megabandas, criminal groups involved in all kinds of bad things down here. In that vehicle will be the vice president. My source is certain of it.”

  “Because it’s personal for him? That’s all I get?” Logan pressed.

  Jack paused. “This particular gang—they murdered the source’s wife while trying to get to him. They killed her with a machete when they found her home while he was out. He found her mutilated corpse at their home in Maracaibo. He’s not the same man that I knew several years ago. I don’t think anyone would be. So if he says the vice president’s in a green Land Rover, I’d bet my life on it. In fact, I have, as well as yours, Cole’s, and your new friend’s.”

  The evil that men do, Logan thought, not wanting to let his mind drift toward the dark place, the one where he saw himself in the source’s shoes, imagining what he would do if something like that happened to Sarah. It almost did. Once.

  “I still can’t believe they won’t fly him in a helo. Putting him at risk like this seems so much more dangerous to me,” Logan said.

  “It is,” Jack said, “but apparently Cordones doesn’t want to draw attention to himself in any way before his exercise kicks off. And you know how dangerous helicopter rides can be. If the vice president dies in a crash, whatever he has that’s so important dies and burns up with him.”

  Logan’s experience included enough close calls in helicopters—including one crash into the Euphrates River in Iraq more than two and a half years ago—to last a lifetime. As fearless as he could be, he was always aware that when he flew in a helicopter he was truly not in control. While the odds of a crash were low, after all the things that Logan had done in the Marine Corps, it was th
e one thing that had always unnerved him: he despised being helpless, and flying in a CH-46 or CH-53E across Iraq, hydraulic fluid leaking onto his pack, had reinforced to him just how much he was.

  “Okay, then,” Logan said, and looked across the highway and down the side of the hill to a neighborhood several hundred feet below them. “Let’s get back to the SUVs and get our game faces on. It’s about to get exciting.”

  “It always does with you,” Jack added.

  “Wrong,” Logan said. “With us. Your retirement hasn’t exactly had you sitting by the fire and reading history books or thrillers. You’ve got just as much blood on your hands as I do.” And if things go sideways, more is about to come.

  The plan was simple, as the best ones were. The only challenge would be the timing, but sixty seconds—if the Land Rover kept its distance from the three-vehicle convoy—would be plenty to work with on the road below. Logan and Jack had driven the road and had timed it between forty-five and fifty seconds to traverse the entire open length.

  Once the three Tiuna multipurpose military vehicles exited the east tunnel, the hardest part of the operation would commence—waiting for the green Land Rover. When the target vehicle had been spotted, two things had to happen simultaneously: the three Tiunas needed to cross the open distance and enter the next tunnel, and the Land Rover had to be between the tunnels. When the Tiunas and the soldiers that they carried were no longer a threat, Jack’s mercenary squad of former operators would use the three Russian communications tracking and jamming SUVs—with the jammers on to ensure reinforcements were not called—to block the entrance to the western tunnel, sealing the Land Rover in the linear ambush area.

  While that happened, a group of the source’s friends or gang members—Jack hadn’t told Logan what they were, and at this point, Logan didn’t care, as long as they did their jobs—on Chinese motorcycles would trail, pass, and then slow down in front of the Land Rover, using one of the city’s major nuisances to their advantage.

  Caracas was plagued by roving bands of motorcyclists, known as motorizados, responsible for endless unintentional accidents, as well as intentional kidnappings and homicides. The opposition to the current regime viewed them as part of the criminal underworld, tied to the government, although most of the cyclists claimed they were just trying to earn a living any way they could, using cheap transportation to do so. Regardless of their true purpose, Logan had seen that the presence of the bikers, who obeyed only the traffic laws of chaos theory, created vehicular mayhem almost everywhere they rolled. The vice president’s driver wouldn’t think twice about a few reckless motorcyclists who pulled in front of him.

  As soon as the driver of the Land Rover was distracted and in position, Logan, Jack, Cole, and Santiago would execute their phase of the ambush, secure the vice president, and move to the extraction point.

  It always seems so easy in the planning stage, Logan thought, as traffic flowed by in both directions thirty yards in front of the gray, box-shaped 2018 Mercedes AMG G65 621-horsepower SUV in which he sat. He still couldn’t believe that Jack had been able to acquire the luxury SUV beasts on such short notice, no doubt from someone engaged in some kind of organized criminal enterprise.

  Jack sat in the passenger seat, and Logan looked past him at Cole and Santiago in the second Mercedes G-Class parked next to them. He nodded at Cole, faced front, and waited as the final minutes ticked down.

  The two SUVs were parked on the south side of the highway, in a dirt-road area at the base of the hill they’d been standing on minutes before. Small buildings on both sides of the road contained equipment that controlled the tunnel’s ventilation system. A few pickup trucks were parked farther down the dirt, but no one glanced twice at the two SUVs that faced the highway.

  The handheld radio in Jack’s hand erupted, and a disembodied voice said, “Three Tiunas just exited the tunnel, heading your way. Estimated speed sixty miles per hour. Stand by for target confirmation.”

  Something about the voice made the flesh on the back of Logan’s neck prickle. He knew the voice, but he couldn’t place it, even though it set him on edge. “Who is that? That’s your source, isn’t it?”

  “Not now,” Jack replied curtly. “There’s no time for this.”

  Logan inhaled and knew Jack was right. Whoever it was, wherever he knew him from, it could wait. He exhaled and allowed the battle calm with which he was familiar to wash over him, focusing his senses and smoothing the edge off his nerves.

  Three olive-drab military SUVs appeared from their right as the Tiunas came around the curve. Four soldiers were in each one, and Logan was certain that their weapons had to be within arm’s reach. More alarming was the M60 7.62mm machine gun straight out of First Blood turret-mounted on the back of the middle SUV, its gunner facing forward and swiveling the barrel back and forth from ten to two o’clock. Just another reason to trap these guys in the tunnel.

  The three Tiunas barreled around the curve, when the voice reported over the encrypted UHF radio channel, “Green Land Rover just exited the tunnel, heading your way. Looks to be moving a little slower than the SUVs. Stand by.”

  Both the target and the threat were in the ambush zone. A few more seconds and we’ll be clear, Logan thought, anticipation building at the thought of capturing the vice president and ending his flight from justice.

  The three Tiunas rounded the curve and entered the final straightaway before the tunnel entrance. The Land Rover was still beyond the curve, out of sight. One hundred more yards, and the vehicles would be gone, the biggest threat neutralized by a man-made feature.

  As the three SUVs closed the distance, the earth began to shake, slowly at first, building in intensity. Logan looked at Jack, horror and determination dawning on the retired general’s face. “You’ve got to be motherfucking kidding me,” Jack said.

  Of all the things to go wrong, Logan thought, and dismissed it just as quickly. Time to adapt or time to die.

  The Venezuelan drivers recognized the imminent danger, and traffic immediately slowed in both directions on all four lanes with the approaching wave of vibration, sound, and fury. The earth shook violently, and Logan watched hopelessly, already anticipating what was to come, as the three Tiunas slammed on their brakes and stopped fifteen yards short of the tunnel entrance.

  Logan grabbed the handheld radio from Jack, depressed the talk button, and said, “Plan B. Motorcycle team, delay the soldiers any way you can. We’re going to find the Land Rover and secure the vice president. Santiago, call in the extract and tell Hector to meet us at the east end of the highway near the other tunnels. We’ll see you there. Out.”

  Hector was onboard the SEBIN Eurocopter AS532 Cougar with the pilot and copilot from last night, both of whom had been extended on their temporary detail to provide any and all air support to Santiago and his American friends. They had the bird in an air overwatch position, minutes away from the ambush area at the north end of the city, when they received Santiago’s message.

  Logan threw the radio back at Jack, shifted gears, and slammed the accelerator to the floor. The Mercedes SUV rocketed across the dirt road, its electronic traction system instantly gripping the dirt and loose rocks. Cole followed closely behind him in the second SUV.

  With each passing second, the Caracas–La Guaira Highway was becoming a parking lot as panicked drivers and motorcyclists halted in the middle of the road with nowhere to go. Mother Nature was its own merciless force that didn’t care about geopolitical warfare, corrupt governments, or treasonous vice presidents. She had her own agenda, and there’d been no way to account for it ahead of time.

  CHAPTER 20

  If we make it out of this one, I’m never coming back to Venezuela, Logan thought as the front tires of the Mercedes reached the pavement. Logan swerved around the nose of a stopped white pickup truck as the intensity of the earthquake increased. This is going to be a bad one, he thought, and recalled the devastation from a quake near Caracas in the late 1960s. God help
us all.

  Logan glanced left and forced himself to remain calm as the tunnel entrance in front of the Tiunas crumbled inward, sending a mountain of dirt and rocks as if thrown by the hand of God onto the pavement. The taillights of a car inside the tunnel disappeared in a cloud of dirt and debris, and Logan hoped the driver had floored it, escaping deeper into the tunnel for refuge.

  He turned back to the road, which started to buckle, and slammed the accelerator to the floor, swerving into the second lane of eastbound traffic. He avoided a young man on a motorcycle who saw the approaching Mercedes and ditched the bike onto its side rather than take the brunt of the SUV. Logan accelerated through the gap in the traffic barrier and crossed into the westbound traffic head-on.

  A small, old green sedan crashed into the right rear quarter panel of the SUV, pushing the back end of the Mercedes several feet to the left before the V12 engine rocketed the Mercedes past the smaller car.

  “Jesus Christ, if the earthquake or the Venezuelan army don’t kill us, you’re going to,” Jack said quietly through clenched teeth.

  “Shut it, Jack,” Logan said, and concentrated on the maze of nearly stopped or parked vehicles in front of him.

  The air was suddenly filled with a deafening roar, and Logan glanced right, only to see the hillside they’d been standing on minutes before slide into the eastbound traffic and cover cars as the earth devoured its human and metal victims. The resulting cloud of dirt and dust rolled into the westbound traffic and plunged the entire section of highway into a hellish tan darkness. It’s like an Iraqi sandstorm, minus the flashes of green lightning, he thought, as he focused more intensely and slowed to navigate the treacherous highway, even as the earth continued to shake.

  Even though the air-conditioning was on and the recirculation button had been depressed, tendrils of dust filled the cabin and swirled inside like a floating invisible jet stream.

  “We’re in the cloud,” Jack said into the radio. “Does anyone have eyes on the Land Rover?”