198 Twenty-five

Sam Gentry was at the wheel.

Billy Bob Collins, Nick Lewis, and Bob Madden sat quietly in the battered Subaru station wagon as they reached the checkpoint outside of Indianapolis, driving empty roads from Tennessee in the dark to carry out their assignment. They were ex-Blackshirts who’d been handpicked by Herb Knoff and General Bradley Stevens, Jr., to carry out what they’d been told was the most important assignment of the war. To kill the men who’d deposed President Osterman and ordered the disbanding of their Blackshirt units.

It had been difficult to find gasoline in places, but Sam had a crew with him who knew how to find things when they were scarce. Showing a gun often made gas station owners less reluctant to part with their precious stores of fuel, now that the country was in chaos after the bombings and raids by soldiers from the SUSA.

Gentry slowed when he came to the perimeter fence, a maze of razor wire and electrically charged chain link around what had been called the War Room, a heavily guarded military compound that had once been President Osterman’s underground headquarters before Ben Raines and his Rebels struck, sending Osterman into hiding in Tennessee.

Armed soldiers came out of the guardhouse. Gentry braked to a halt in the light from a pair of mercury vapor lamps. The rest of the compound was cloaked in darkness.

“What’s your business?” a uniformed soldier asked, peer-

 

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ing into the car window, his eyebrows raising at the sight of their black uniforms.

Gentry took out his false papers, a good forgery even in bright light. “We’re here to see General Joseph Winter and Mr. Otis Warner. A Code Seven. They’re expecting us.”

The soldier glanced at his identification, then at the other three passengers. “I thought all the Blackshirt units had been disbanded.”

Gentry smiled. “Most of ‘em have, but we’re on special assignment. That’s what we’re hear to report about.”

“What’s this Code Seven?”

“You’re supposed to know about it.”

“I’ll have to check,” the soldier said. “Can’t let you in without authorization. Stay put while I call down to the command center. I never heard of Code Seven.”

The guard walked away. Gentry spoke softly over his right shoulder. “This may not work. President Osterman said a Code Seven would get us in.”

“I say we just kill these sons of bitches,” Bob Madden said, his fist wrapped around a Glock .45 with a silencer, hidden inside his coat. “We can cut the phone lines and bust their radios.”

“I agree,” Nick Lewis said. “This is bullshit. If we keep sittin’ here, they can kill us real easy.”

“Five guards,” Gentry observed. “We’ll have to take ‘em fast and quiet.”

“Let’s do it,” Billy Bob Collins said, a strange glint in his eyes. “The way we are now, we’re sittin’ ducks.”

He jerked a silenced Colt .45 automatic from his belt and opened the door on the Subaru. “I’ve got the electronic passkey Osterman gave us. We kill these sumbitches an’ drive in. Then we kill Warner and Winter and get the hell out of here before they know what hit ‘em.”

Lewis was not waiting for further encouragement. The

 

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money President Osterman was paying them to assassinate General Joseph Winter and Otis Warner was enough to be worth taking a few chances, not to mention the opportunity to have their Blackshirt units reinstated. As a hit squad, Sam Gentry’s group had never failed to carry out an assignment.

“Hey, there!” Lewis shouted to the soldier inside the guard station. “I’ve got somethin’ else I want to show you.”

The others got out slowly, as though with no real purpose in mind.

“Stay in the car!” a soldier commanded. “You’ve gotta wait until Sergeant Drake gets clear?nce for you.”

Bob Madden walked up to the guard. “Fuck you,” he whispered as he stuck the barrel of his silenced Walther against the soldier’s belly.

A puffing noise followed. The guard’s eyes bulged as his knees gave way. Blood poured from a huge hole in his back where the shell exited. Pieces of his spinal column jutted through bis camouflage shirt.

Billy Bob Collins fired three whispering bullets into a guard slouched beside the gate.

The soldier collapsed in a heap beside the chain-link fence and groaned, letting bis rifle fall to the damp ground where he sprawled, bleeding.

Gentry shot the guard in the guardhouse. The other soldiers were killed instantly when Bob Madden turned his gun on the remaining men.

“Open the gate, Billy Bob,” Gentry said. “Nick, you cut the phone lines and take out that radio. We’ll pull the bodies out of sight and close the gate behind us. That way, it’ll look like it’s supposed to look.”

Gentry fired his Glock at a soldier still squirming beside the guardhouse. The thump of molten lead entering flesh was muted by the quiet throb of the Subaru’s engine.

“Let’s go,” Lewis said after he pulled the guard’s body

 

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out of sight behind the guard station. Lewis was the last man to climb back into the car when the gate was closed.

“I cut the phone lines and smashed the radio,” Madden said as Gentry put the car in low gear. “With any luck at all we’ll be out of here in ten minutes.”

“We gotta kill both of them,” Gentry said, aiming for a bunker a quarter of a mile away where two more guards stood at the top of a stairway leading underground. “And we’ve gotta kill these two guards without any noise.”

“Give ‘em the Code Seven bullshit again,” Billy Bob said from the backseat.

“\eah,” Lewis said. “While you’re tellin’ them about Code Seven, I’ll climb out this back door and blow their fuckin’ heads off.”

Billy Bob chuckled softly. “That’s what a Code Seven really is, Nick. It’s a death sentence, an’ we’re the ones who are here deliverin’ it.”

“Keep your guns out of sight,” Gentry warned, drawing closer to the underground compound. “Smile the prettiest smiles you’ve got and act natural.”

Tommy Davis had been expecting trouble for weeks. Rumors that President Osterman was dead couldn’t be verified. He watched the yellow Subaru station wagon approach the entrance to the underground command center where General Joseph Winter and Otis Warner were trying to control a war-torn country.

“Something smells like shit,” Davis said. “I don’t like the looks of this car. We didn’t get any clearance from the gate, so be ready. I’ll call the front gate to see who these people are, and what they’re doing here.”

Herbert Faust readied his Uzi, jacking back the loading mechanism. “You give the word, Captain, an’ I’ll blow that little yellow car to bits.”

 

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Davis keyed the mike on his radio. “Main Gate One. Who is in the yellow station wagon?”

He got no answer. Davis picked up the telephone connecting the guardhouse with the bunker. “Sergeant Drake?” he asked into the mouthpiece.

Again, he got no reply.

“What did Sergeant Drake say?” Faust wanted to know.

“He didn’t pick up the phone,” Davis replied.

“These motherfuckers broke through,” Faust snarled, rising above the concrete wall in front of the entrance with his Uzi in both hands. “I’ll kill them.”

“Wait until we hear their story. The communications lines could be down,” Davis said.

The Subaru ground to a stop in front of the entrance into the War Room. Four men got out.

“What are you doing here?” Captain Davis asked, his hand resting on his own Uzi.

“We’re here to see General Winter and Mr. Warner,” the driver said. “It’s a Code Seven.”

Faust grunted. The old entry codes were no longer valid. General Winter had changed all the old signals when he took over command of the USA forces after President Osterman was reported killed.

He rose up and aimed his machine gun at the strangers. “Code Seven has been discontinued,” he said. “Put your hands where I can see them or you’re dead meat.”

The slender one, the driver, came out with a pistol. It was all the prompting Herbert Faust needed.

He sprayed the Subaru and the newcomers with a hail of bullets, the hammering of his Uzi ending a quiet around the compound at Indianapolis.

Two men went down with his first burst of gunfire, blood spattering all over the yellow station wagon as their bodies danced and jigged under the onslaught of the molten lead ripping into them.

A shot was fired by a man behind the Subaru, his bullet

 

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tearing a chunk of meat out of Captain Davis’s shoulder and spinning him half around. Faust directed his fire across the luggage rack of the car, ripping the man’s head off when a string of bullets crossed his throat.

The last man to go down was killed by Captain Davis with a short burst of automatic-weapons fire fired one-handed, his left arm hanging useless by his side.

“We got ‘em,” Faust said.

Captain Davis nodded, his face screwed up in pain from the wound in his shoulder. “Make sure they’re all dead,” he growled. “Then go through their pockets and find out who they are … who they were. I’ll inform President Warner there’s been an attempt on his life.”

 

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Comandante Perro Loco stood by a window of the hacienda while a radio operator, Sergeant Manuel Ortiz, adjusted the dials on a shortwave set sitting on a desk against a far wall. The dark-haired American prisoner stood by to give the operator instructions for the frequency Ortiz would need to contact President Osterman.

Manuel looked up when he found a garbled speaker’s voice on the dial. Radio transmissions across most of Central America were subject to weather conditions and the strength of the signal.

“Someone just said an announcement was forthcoming from the military headquarters of General Ben Raines,” Manuel said. “It is a special broadcast given by General Raines. It is being relayed all over the North American continent. The speech will be translated into Spanish as well as English. Do you want to hear it, comandante? “

Perro Loco’s jaw jutted unconsciously despite being preoccupied with other matters. He stared blankly out the window while static crackled from the radio’s speaker.

“Yes. Let’s hear what the mighty general from the colossus to the north has to say.”

“We have a message from General Raines,” a deep voice announced. “A reading of the Tri-State Manifesto, which the general says will govern policies all across North America from now on. Here is General Raines.”

A deeper voice began speaking.

 

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“As advocates and supporters of the Tri-State philosophy, we believe that freedom, like respect, is earned and must be constantly nurtured and protected from those who would take it away. We believe in the right of every law-abiding citizen to protect his or her life, liberty, and personal property by any means at hand, without fear of arrest, criminal prosecution, or lawsuit. The right to bear arms is essential to maintaining true personal freedom.

“We believe that politicians, theorists, and socialists are the greatest threat to freedom-loving peoples and that their misguided efforts have caused grave injustices in the fields of criminal law, education, and public welfare.

“Therefore, in respect to criminal law, an effective criminal justice system should be guided by these basic tenets: Our courts must stop pampering criminals.

“The punishment must fit the crime.

“Justice must be fair, but also be swift and, if necessary, harsh.

“There is no perfect society. Only a fair one.

“Therefore, in respect to education, education is the key to solving problems in any society and the lack of it is the root cause of a country’s decline.

“An effective system of education must stress hard discipline along with the arts, sciences, fine music, and basic skills in reading, writing, and mathematics. It must teach fairness and respect. It must teach morals, the dignity of labor, and the value of the family.

“Therefore in respect to welfare. Welfare-we prefer workfare-is reserved only for the elderly, infirm, and those who need a temporary helping hand.

“And the welfare system must also instill the concept of honest work for honest pay. Instill the concept that everyone who can work must work, and be forced to work if necessary.

“It must instill the concept that there is no free lunch and that being productive citizens in a free society is the only honorable path to take.

 

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“And that racial prejudice and bigotry are intolerable in a free and vital society. No one is worthy of respect simply because of the color of their skin. Respect is earned by actions and by deeds, not by birthright.

“There are only two types of people on earth … decent and indecent. Those who are decent will flourish, and those who are not will perish. No laws laid down by a body of government can make one person like another.

“A free and just society must be protected at all costs even if it means shedding the blood of its citizens. The willingness of citizens to lay down their lives for the belief in freedom is a cornerstone of true democracy. Without that willingness the structure of society will surely crumble and fall into the ashes of history.

“Therefore, along with the inalienable right to bear arms, and the inalienable right to personal protection, a strong, skilled, and well-equipped military is essential to maintaining a free society.

“A strong military eliminates the need for allies, allowing the society to focus on the needs of its citizens.

“The business of citizens is not the business of the world unless the rights of citizens are infringed upon by outside forces.

“The duty of those who live in a free society is clear, and personal freedom is not negotiable.

“In conclusion, we who support the Tri-State philosophy and live by its code and its laws pledge to defend it by any means necessary. We pledge to work fairly and justly to rebuild and maintain a society in which all citizens are truly free, and are able to pursue productive lives without fear and without intervention.”

A pause. Perro Loco turned his face to the radio.

“This is the manifesto by which the continent of North America will be governed,” Raines continued. “For too long, the people in parts of this country have been dominated by a woman named Claire Osterman and a political system in

 

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which she proclaimed herself President. As of this date, President Osterman’s armies have been crushed. President Osterman is reported to be dead. This period of Nazi-style government has come to an end. Elections will be held, and the people of North America will be free to govern themselves. President Osterman has been defeated. You have nothing to fear from her now. She has been driven from power, if she is still alive, and most of her soldiers are prisoners of the Tri-States government.”

Perro Loco glared at the American prisoner. “Can this be true? Is your President dead?”

“No,” Arnoldo Mendoza said. “You spoke to her yourself not two days ago.”

Loco regarded him through narrowed eyes. “I spoke to a voice on a radio claiming to be President Osterman. Now, this general from the SUSA says she is dead.” He shrugged. “Who is to know what is true?”

Mendoza shook his head back and forth. “I’m telling you, sir, she is alive. She sent me here to find you.”

Loco held up his hand for quiet as a final message came from the radio. “Rulers like Osterman are the root of all evil on this planet. And we pledge to hunt them down, as well as all others who oppose the freedom of mankind. North America is free, and we intend to make sure it remains that way forever.”

Jim Strunk shook his head. “It’s bullshit, comandante. I believe Osterman is still alive. After all, the woman you talked to knew all about our previous conversations before she was reported dead.”

The radio transmission ended.

Perro Loco grimaced. “What you say is true, Jim. For now, we will proceed as if the woman we are speaking to is in fact the President as she says. After all, if she is not, we have risked nothing we have not already planned to do in any case. However, we will be careful not to let her know too much of our plans.”

 

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Loco walked to his desk and picked up his cup of coffee, cold now, as his thoughts turned to General Ben Raines, the man he was soon to face in battle. Raines feels sure his victory was complete, Loco thought. will prove him wrong.p>

“When we meet on the battlefield, Raines,” Loco snarled, “you will face total annihilation. Enjoy your brief moment of triumph, you arrogant bastard. When I march north across Mexico it will be with one purpose … to destroy you. And I will!”

He gave Ortiz a chilly stare. “Find the frequency for this President Osterman. Tell her that I will agree to form a military alliance with her … but under my conditions.”

“Si, comandante,” Ortiz replied, twisting a dial on the shortwave set.

Arnoldo Mendoza cleared his throat. “I fought Raines before over in Africa, while I was with Bruno Bottger. Raines is clever as hell. I was lucky to escape with my life.”

“Tell me about it … about Raines,” Perro Loco said. “What is it that makes him so hard to kill?”

Mendoza thought for a moment, then looked up at Loco. “He’s smart as hell, and he seems to have an instinct for what an enemy is going to do next.” The American shook his head. “I’ve never heard of him being caught by surprise …”

 

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Arnoldo Mendoza began the story of the months he’d spent in Africa under the command of Bruno Bottger, speaking softly as Ortiz twisted his radio controls.

“General Conreid came into Bruno’s subterranean office, his face a ghostly white. He saluted smartly and stood at attention until Bruno spoke to him.

” ‘What is so important that you told Rudolf you had to see me right away?’

“Conreid took a deep breath. ‘I have bad news, General Field Marshal.’

” ‘I guessed as much. It has to do with your armored division tracking the Rebel bitch, Commander Malone. I use the term loosely.’

” ‘I’m afraid so,’ Conreid replied. ‘I sent one of our best field armored commanders, Major Schultz, and almost fifty of our Minsks and Bulldogs. Three hundred men from the Pretorian Guard went along as infantry support…’

” ‘And?’ Bruno was growing impatient, although he had already guessed what Conreid came to tell him.

” ‘We engaged the enemy in southern Angola …”

” ‘It does not matter where! Get on with it!’

“Conreid swallowed hard, and his hands pressed to his legs were shaking. ‘They destroyed us. Every tank was immobilized or blown to bits. Five men escaped on foot in the

 

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jungle. One of them just radioed me with a full report. They had antitank rockets and heavy mortars. Major Schultz is dead and so is everyone else; however, I was told the Rebels captured Captain Klaus, commander of the Pretorian Guard unit. I suppose they intend to question him.’

“Bruno momentarily closed his eyes, fighting back the urge to use his Steyer on General Conreid. Incompetence could not be tolerated. ‘They will torture Klaus, wanting to know about our fortifications here at Pretoria so the information can be sent to General Raines. It is quite clear this bastard Raines intends to storm our headquarters. There is no other explanation for his curious movements.’

” ‘I agree,’ Conreid stammered. ‘They move back and forth to confuse us, but every Rebel battalion seems to be moving toward South Africa, toward Pretoria.’

” ‘Will this Captain Klaus talk if they torture him?’

” ‘That… would be difficult to say. He is a brave soldier, as his record shows, but virtually any man will crack under the right amount of pressure.’

“Bruno settled back in his chair. ‘So your brilliant strategy has failed us, General Conreid. You assured me you could find Commander Malone and her Battalion Twelve and crush her soundly. Instead, you tell me we’ve been handed a crushing defeat, losing fifty valuable tanks and their support vehicles.’

“Conreid nodded, having some difficulty finding his voice for the moment. ‘Somehow, they were expecting us at a particularly difficult spot to defend. The survivor who radioed me said it was deep jungle, and that land mines had been well placed in the most strategic and damaging areas.’

” ‘Your tanks were drawn into an ambush.’

” ‘It would seem so. Schultz was a brilliant field commander, and I’m at a loss to explain it. I can only offer this, and it will seem a weak excuse. The woman, Malone, has virtually no air support; thus she stays in the deepest jungles where our air superiority is of no use. If we could have put

 

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the Hinds on top of her, this disaster would not have happened. Colonel Walz had air recon over the area and he found no trace of an entire Rebel battalion in Botswana or Angola. We found out where Battalion Twelve was from a Zulu mercenary. Walz could give us nothing at all.’

” ‘Then it would seem I have incompetent men directing our aircraft and our armored divisions,’ Bruno told him, as his anger multiplied. He leaned forward and slammed his fist on the desk.

“Conreid flinched, but said nothing, as Bruno fixed him with a steely-eyed stare. ‘You have failed me miserably, General. I will not tolerate failure. You can’t even win a skirmish with a woman in command of our enemy. She appears to be a far better tactician than either you or Colonel Walz. I find I’m surrounded by incompetence, by idiots! In the days of the great Nazi regime under Adolph Hitler, both of you would be shot for failing our cause. Hitler would not have tolerated this!’

” ‘I understand, General Field Marshal. I simply did the best I could, devising the best plan feasible to destroy an army that will not come out in the open to fight. The woman stays hidden, leaving us with no choice but to ferret her out of her jungle hiding places. I could think of no other way without cover from our airships. We had to go in after her, to halt her march on Pretoria.’

“Bruno’s jaw clamped. ‘Instead, you lead our men and material to total destruction!’

” ‘I cannot deny it. I have served you and the New World Order as faithfully as I knew how. Until we were confronted by this elusive woman and her battalion, I enjoyed a great many successes in the name of our cause. But Malone does not fight with military strategy. It is as if she always does the thing we expect least from a well-trained army. I can offer you no other explanation.’

” ‘What the hell will stop her from marching all the way to Pretoria, General?’

 

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“For the first time, Conreid smiled, albeit weakly. ‘If she gets this far, she will be forced to come out in the open, even if she does make it across northern Botswana. She must then face the Kalahari Desert in the south. Her tanks will break down in the sand. We can direct air strikes on her until she has been wiped out, down to the last man.’

” ‘But what if she suddenly turns east into Zimbawe, following the rivers the way she has in the past?’

” ‘She and General Raines and his other battalions will still have to cross the Transvaal. When they do, we will blow them off the face of the earth. There will be no places to hide from our bombers and rockets, and our antiaircraft gunners will knock their Apaches from the skies.’

“Bruno wondered, tapping a finger on his desk. What was happening now was all too much like events that had happened before in Europe many years ago. The weakling United Nations Secretary General, Moon, had branded him a neo-Nazi fanatic and a major threat to world stability. Bruno had raised a massive army to realize his dream of reviving the Third Reich in the post-apocalyptic world. He had formed an elite Minority Eradication Force in Switzerland, and had had almost 250,000 veteran troops to prepare for war against Ben Raines and other SUSA armies. After several months of bloody fighting, Bruno had called for a meeting in Geneva. There, he had made his racial position clear-the lands he controlled would be his empire forever, and he vowed to fight to the death to defend it, an empire where he would allow no Jews or blacks or any other minorities. By then, his army had risen to almost three million men. And it was in Geneva where Bruno had related that his scientists were developing a serum that caused infertility, which he planned to introduce to the drinking water supply in Africa and Asia, to thin the world’s minority populations.

“When the talks grew ugly, Bruno’s men staged an attack and captured President Blanton, but with a motive, to fake his rescue and win global sympathy. Ben Raines exposed his

 

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plan before he could put it into action. Since, he and Raines had become sworn enemies.

“Bruno had given Raines an ultimatum: Be out of Europe in twenty-four hours, or all-out war would commence. Bruno had no choice but to back up his threat and attack when Raines ignored the ultimatum. Bruno’s empire, called the New Federation, all but collapsed. He was driven back across Germany, with high casualties, heading for Russia. But Raines cut him off and Bruno was forced to stage his own suicide, leaving his second in command, General Henrich, to show Raines a body said to be that of Bruno Bottger. While this delaying tactic was going on, Bruno took a hundred thousand of his men and escaped to Africa, to start over. All this because of Ben Raines-being forced to quietly rebuild a powerful army, equipped with the best weaponry on earth while in hiding in Pretoria, biding his time until he was ready.

“And now, Raines was coming after him again. And again, it seemed nothing could stop him.

“Bruno spoke to Conreid. ‘Tell Colonel Walz I want a meeting tonight. Inform General Ligon. Perhaps now it is time to put our germ and chemical weapons to better use from the air. We will see if General Raines and his battalions are fully prepared for a new type of war.’

“Conreid seemed relieved. ‘I will summon Walz and Ligon. I agree. The time has come to put everything to the ultimate test. We cannot withstand any more huge casualties or our weapons stock will be seriously depleted. We have superiority in the air, or so we believe. Let’s test the Rebels in the skies.’

“Bruno pored over his maps, then studied recon reports, as few as they were, even though they were probably grossly inaccurate. He had given up letting others plan what his New World Order armies would do, deciding he could devise his own defense and counterattacks.

“Rudolf Hessner looked on from a chair across the desk,

 

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as did Colonel Walz, General Ligon, and General Conreid, who had arrived only moments ago for the meeting.

” ‘They’ll come from three directions,’ Bruno said, talking to himself as much as the others. ‘One fork will come from the west, across the southern tip of Nambia, either along the Atlantic coast or across Great Namaland.’ He pointed a finger to a spot on the map.

“Colonel Walz nodded. ‘We can see them coming from the air. Namaland is fairly open. Not many places to hide tanks or APCs and our radar will pick up their aircraft. We can set up antiaircraft batteries west of Johannesburg. We’ll put them in deep bunkers so they can’t be taken out by smaller rockets.”

” ‘Good,’ Bruno said, moving his finger to the Republic of Botswana. ‘I know Ben Raines … the way his mind works. He’ll send a force of some kind across the Kalahari, probably with strong air support, fighters and helicopter gunships. Here is where we’ll meet him head-on in the skies, with tank battalions to back us up.’

” ‘A very good idea,’ General Conreid said. ‘We can put a few antiaircraft cannons in fortified sand pits near Serpwe, where there is enough rock to protect them. Sending tanks out into the Kalahari will be something he won’t expect; however, our Minsks can do well in sand or snow.’

“Bruno looked at Colonel Walz. ‘Can we give this area enough air support, Colonel?’

” ‘Of course, General Field Marshal.’

“Now Bruno turned to General Ligon. ‘The Kalahari would be a good place to drop nerve-gas bombs. We know they are impervious to our anthrax agents. Mustard gas, and tear gas, will force them into protective gear, which will slow them down significantly in the desert heat’

” ‘I agree,’ Ligon said. ‘Our inventory contains well over five hundred mustard gas canisters, and over twice that many of the tear-gas bombs. If we drop the right number of both

 

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on the forces coming across the Kalahari, they will suffer immeasurably in the desert heat.’

” ‘I want the bastards to suffer,’ Bruno hissed, returning to his map. ‘Now all we have to do is prepare our defenses and plan for attack in Zimbawe.’

” ‘Napalm,’ Colonel Walz suggested.

” ‘Yes, I like the idea of using napalm there,’ Conreid agreed quickly.

” ‘It will set the jungle ablaze,’ General Ligon agreed. ‘If we score direct hits they will be cooked alive, and then we can go in and mop up with tanks and infantrymen.’

“Bruno looked up. ‘Make these preparations, gentlemen. And be sure of one thing. If any of you fails to carry out his assignment, I will personally see to your execution.’

” ‘Do not worry,’ General Ligon said as he got up from the table. ‘Our chemical weapons will not fail if they are delivered properly.’

“Colonel Walz nodded when he stood up. ‘Rest assured they will be delivered correctly by my aircraft, General Field Marshal Bottger. I will not fail you.’

“General Conreid got up last. ‘I will redeem myself for what happened in Angola. This, I promise you.’

” ‘Then get started,’ Bruno said evenly, looking around the group with hooded eyes. ‘This will be the final defeat of all Rebel forces.’

” ‘We intend to make certain of it,’ Walz said, turning on his heel to be let out by Rudolf.

“One by one his officers filed out of the room, leaving Bruno alone with myself and Rudolf. Rudolf came over to the table with a question on his face.

” ‘Keep a close eye on General Conreid,’ Bruno said, keeping his voice low.

” ‘Do you suspect him of treason?’ the muscular Rudolf asked, frowning.

” ‘Perhaps. Perhaps he is only a clever fool. I may have been blind to his shortcomings. Report his every movement

 

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to me, and if he makes a mistake in these preparations, or if he talks to anyone who may be suspicious, I want to be informed.’

“Rudolf smiled, a chilly smile. ‘Then, if you wish, I will kill him for you and make him suffer a terrible death.’

“Bruno shook his head. ‘If he is a traitor, or even merely a fool who has led our soldiers to their deaths, that is exactly what I have in mind for him.”

Perro Loco gave the American a steady gaze. “So tell me what happened?”

“General Raines was ready for us. He destroyed Bottger’s armies. As I told you before, I was lucky to get out of Africa alive. He anticipated our every move, almost as if he knew what we were going to do before we did.”

Loco walked back to the window. “We will show him a very different kind of war. Contact President Osterman. If we form an alliance we will have him trapped on two sides, from the north and the south. Just make sure your President understands I will be in charge of all military actions in Mexico. I will brook no interference from her in my plans.”

When Ortiz had the connection made, he nodded and Mendoza took the microphone. “This is Arnoldo Mendoza. Let me talk to President Osterman. I have news from Perro Loco.”

 

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Claire Osterman gathered her inner circle of advisers around her following her talk with Arnoldo Mendoza and Perro Loco.

She sipped from a cup of herbal tea, trying to stay on her new health regime since Herb Knoff and even the usually imperturbable Harlan Millard had shown uncommon pleasure in her new body.

As usual, Harlan was being a worrywart. “I just don’t know if we can trust this Perro Loco guy,” he said, his forehead wrinkled in frown lines. “After all, what do we know about him?”

General Bradley Stevens, Jr., cleared his throat impatiently. “Goddamn, Harlan!” he said in his hoarse drill sergeant’s voice. “What the hell do we need to know about the son of a bitch other than the fact he says he’s got fifty thousand troops massed at Mexico’s southern border an’ he’s willin’ to attack in the next few days?”

Claire cocked an eyebrow and glanced at Herb Knoff for his input.

He shrugged, phlegmatic as usual when discussing matters of military strategy. He only became really interested if it seemed he might get the chance to do someone bodily harm personally, or when he was in bed with the now shapely and more youthful-looking Claire.

“I agree with the general,” he said, stifling a yawn. “It seems pretty obvious he’s planning on attacking Mexico with

 

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or without us, so we really have very little to lose by promising him we’ll try to keep Ben Raines and the SUSA busy on this end-which we plan to do anyway.” He looked around the room. “I can’t see any downside to this arrangement.”

Claire nodded. “Nor can I. If the dumb Mexican is stupid enough to believe everything I tell him, he deserves to be disappointed when we shitcan his ass.”

“Actually, Claire, I believe he’s a Nicaraguan, not a Mexican,” Harlan said, causing everyone in the room to laugh.

Harlan looked flustered. “But, Claire, we don’t even know if he’s gonna be able to take command of the Nicaraguan Army like he says he can.”

“I don’t give a shit if he’s from outer space, or if he will be able to take over the army down there. But as long as he can cause enough trouble down south to get Mexico or Nicaragua to ask Raines for help, that’ll give Raines that many less troops to send against us once I take over as President of the USA.”

Herb Knoff cocked his head to the side and looked at Stevens. “Speaking of which, how’re we doing in that regard, Brad?”

General Stevens pulled a cigar as thick as a sausage out of his pocket and stuck it in his mouth. ” ‘Bout as good as we can expect, given the short amount of time we’ve had an’ the limited number of personnel available to us. We’ve managed to hook up with most of the ex-Blackshirt regiments, an’ a lot of the FPPS boys are on our side too. In the last two days we’ve managed to sabotage two airfields and put one entire base out of action by contaminatin’ the water supply with … um, fecal material.”

“Fecal material?” Harlan asked. “You mean …”

Stevens laughed. “You got it, Harlan, shit. The whole damn base is fightin’ over the latrines ‘cause of the dysentery they got from it.”

“Any word on our assassination team?” Claire asked Herb.

He shook his head. “Nope, and I’m afraid that’s bad news.

 

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If they’d been successful, we’d’ve heard from them by now. I think we have to consider that particular mission a failure.”

Claire shrugged. “It was a long shot anyway, but at least the bastards’ll lose some sleep now that they know I’m damned serious about getting my old job back.”

Stevens pursed his lips around the cigar butt. “You know, we might give it another try, if you don’t mind possibly losing a helicopter or two in the attempt.”

“What do you mean, Brad?” Claire asked, leaning her elbows on her desk as she glared at him.

“One of those airfields I mentioned happens to have a couple of Blackhawk choppers on it. We might wanta send ‘em down to Indianapolis and fire a couple of missiles at Warner and General Winter. If we hit ‘em, good enough, an’ if we don’t, hell, it don’t never hurt to fire a couple a shots over the enemy’s head just to keep ‘em too busy duckin’ to fire back at you.”

Claire slapped her hand down on her desk. “Capital idea, Bradley. Why don’t you take care of that right away?”

Stevens pulled a small notebook from his pocket and made a note. “I’ll see that it gets done within twenty-four hours, Madame President, and I’ll also work on getting a couple of jets to go after Raines’s base in Arkansas.”

“Okay, then. Gentlemen, this meeting is adjourned until tomorrow at the same time when perhaps we’ll have some good news from the general.”

As the three men got to their feet, Claire said, “Hold on a minute, Herb. I have a few additional things to go over with you.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He followed Stevens and Millard to the door and closed it behind them. When he turned around, Claire already had her blouse unbuttoned, showing she was wearing no bra.

“Come back here to my private office, Herb. Talking about killing Otis always makes me horny as hell,” she said, walking through a door on the far side of the room.

 

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“Seeing you like that does the same thing to me,” Herb said, undoing his shirt as he followed her through the door.

She stood next to the bed and slipped out of her shirt and skirt, posing naked in front of Knoff for just a moment before climbing beneath the covers.

When Herb hesitated, she smiled seductively. “Hurry up, lover. We’re wasting valuable time.”

Herb grinned. “Don’t tell me to hurry, Claire. I know you like it much better when I take my time.”

“Yeah,” she said, leaning back with her arms behind her neck. “Like the old song says, ‘I like a man with the slow hands …’ “

 

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Perro Loco sipped coffee as he sat in the rear seat of the Lear Jet as it sped toward Managua, Nicaragua. The jet, though almost twenty-five years old, was still pristine, having been maintained to the highest standards by the drug lord Loco’s men had liberated it from.

“Is everything set up?” he asked Paco Valdez.

“Si, comandante. Our friends in the newspapers have been reporting your fears of a Mexican strike against Presidente Montenegro in Nicaragua. They have been calling for him to appoint you as Ambassador at Large to try and head off such an attack.”

“And Montenegro?”

Valdez shook his head. “He knows our accusations are bullshit, but with the people so afraid, he has not publicly said so. It is my understanding he is looking for some way to keep from having to give you any official authority, in fear you will try to take over the government.”

Strunk, sitting a couple of rows forward, laughed out loud. “The bastard’s right to be afraid, ‘cause that’s exactly what’s gonna happen.”

“How about Eduardo? Has he made it here yet?” Loco asked, referring to his helicopter pilot who’d been sent ahead the previous week with an old Huey gunship with Mexico markings on it.

Valdez nodded. “Si. He radioed he had no trouble flying over Guatemala and Honduras. The fuel dumps were exactly

 

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where the rebels told us they’d be, and he reported he is now less than twenty miles from Managua and is ready to attack the Presidential Palace on our command.”

“And the stolen DEA missiles we have fitted to his helicopter?”

Valdez shrugged. “We have no way of knowing if they will operate as they are supposed to. After all, they are fifteen years old and we have no one who can check them.”

Strunk turned in his seat. “It won’t matter if he actually manages to kill Montenegro or not. Once the attack is made and blamed on Mexico, Montenegro will have no choice but to appoint you to the government.”

“That is correct, comandante,” Valdez added. “After you’re proven right in your accusations against Mexico, the people will be screaming for you to be their new leader.”

Loco nodded. “Yes, but it will be much easier if that old lady Montenegro is dead and out of the way. He is a coward and will be hard to convince to commit the Nicaraguan troops in a war against Mexico.”

Strunk raised his glass of scotch whiskey. “Then let’s toast Eduardo and hope he blows the son of a bitch to Hell and back.”

“When are you planning to order the attack?” Valdez asked.

“Day after tomorrow. I will meet with Montenegro and again warn him of my fears for his life, with plenty of reporters present, and then the next day when the attack occurs, I will be ready to assume my proper place in the government of Nicaragua.”

“By then, General Juan Dominguez will have our Belizian troops massed on the border with Mexico, ready to move northward and take the Mexicans’ attention away from events in Nicaragua,” Valdez said, rubbing his hands together in cheerful anticipation of finally putting into practice the plans he and Perro Loco had been making for several years.

“What about Honduras and Guatemala?” Strunk asked as

 

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he stood up and refilled his scotch at a bar in the front of the cabin.

“I have been assured by the leaders of those countries they are ready to join us if I gain control of the Nicaraguan Army. They have no love for Mexico and even less for the United States.”

“And they are tired of getting the rest of the world’s leftovers. They hunger for the respect and wealth only Perro Loco can give them,” Valdez added.

Strunk took a deep draught of his drink, then smiled. “Do they have any idea what your true plans are for their countries?”

Loco laughed. “Of course not, amigo. Would they agree to join me if they thought that soon they would also be under my control?”

“Once we have control of Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala, we will have over fifty thousand troops at our disposal to use against Mexico. They will not stand a chance against us,” Valdez said.

Loco interrupted. “Enough of this talk. I must ready my speech to the newspapers and the Congress about the unfortunate attack upon the peaceful peoples of Nicaragua by the imperialists of Mexico.”

Two days later, newspaper reporters and camera crews from the two Nicaraguan television stations gathered outside the Presidential Palace in Managua for a news conference scheduled for ten o’clock in the morning. President Hum-berto Montenegro was going to speak to the country about his plans for the upcoming year, and whether they would include the well-known rebel leader Perro Loco.

At nine AM, Eduardo Cortes lifted his helicopter from the airfield at La Cms, Nicaragua. He glanced through the Plexiglas windshield as the commander of the airfield, Colonel Santiago Gomez, waved him off. Eduardo smiled. All

 

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Gomez had wanted for the use of his field was a promise that Loco would promote him when he came to power. Eduardo knew Loco would not forget the colonel, for he never forgot a traitor, even when they worked in his favor. Eduardo knew the colonel was not going to be happy to be remembered by Perro Loco.

At nine-thirty, Eduardo Cortes banked his ancient Huey around the ten-story Bank of Central America building, and headed down the main street of Managua at an altitude of two hundred feet and a speed of 180 miles an hour.

“Listo!” he shouted over his shoulder to Pablo Sandoza, who was strapped to a fifty-caliber machine gun on a post in the open hatchway door of the Huey. The World War II gun was almost as old as the helicopter, but was still capable of firing over a thousand rounds a minute and causing almost indescribable damage to whatever it was aimed at.

“I’m ready,” Sandoza screamed back, trying to make himself heard over the whup-whup-whup of the blades and the whistle of air streaming in the open door. He reached forward, jerked the loading jack of the machine gun to the ready position, and swiveled the barrel to point forward and downward.

As the Huey hurtled toward the Presidential Palace, Eduardo remembered Loco’s orders. “Kill as many of the reporters and media people as you can, because nothing so inflames the press as when some of their own are killed while covering a story. But try to avoid the cameras as much as possible. We want the picture of a Mexican helicopter mowing down innocent civilians to be on every news feed in the world by the evening newscasts.”

Eduardo glanced at the screen in the middle of the instrument panel of the chopper, wishing it had a Heads Up Display so he wouldn’t have to take his eyes off piloting to fire the twin twenty-caliber machine guns under the fuselage. Of course, the Huey was built and flying long before HUDs were

 

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invented, so Eduardo shrugged, vowing to do the best he could under the circumstances.

At the sound of the screaming turbines of the Huey, the crowd below all turned and looked up, most shading their eyes against the morning sun as the ship dived toward them.

Only at the last minute did they realize they were under attack and start to panic and try to run away. It was much too late for that, as the Huey screamed toward them at almost sixteen thousand feet per minute.

Eduardo thumbed the fire-control switch on his yoke, and the twin twenties began to chatter their song of death seconds before Sandoza did the same on the big fifty in the rear doorway.

Men and women in the crowd were literally blown to pieces by the thousands of rounds of molten lead pouring at them from the Huey as it flew by less than fifty feet off the ground.

In a belated reaction, the Palace guards began firing their rifles and machine guns at the Huey, but they were inexperienced in shooting at aircraft and all failed to lead the big bird enough.

Eduardo jerked the yoke and swung the Huey in a sweeping circle, lining up his missile sights on the second floor of the Palace, where Loco had told him Montenegro’s quarters were.

Just before he thumbed the switch, Eduardo fancied he saw a shadow of a man standing at the windows overlooking Montenegro’s balcony.

“Eat this, you bastardo,” Eduardo screamed as he pushed the button and watched twin trails of exhaust arch toward the building. He banked as sharply as he dared and pushed the throttle to its maximum position to get out of range of the blasts, so as not to be blown out of the air by his own missiles.

Seconds later, his face distorted by several Gs of centrifugal force, Eduardo heard an immense explosion behind them and felt the aircraft jump forward and shudder as if a giant hand had flicked it aside. Struggling with all his might, he

 

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managed to keep airborne, and when the Huey’s flight was stable, he twisted in his seat to see what he’d accomplished.

The entire Presidential Palace, what was left of it, was in flames, and the second floor had collapsed and was a smoking ruin of charred and blackened bricks and steel. No one in the place could possibly have survived.

“We did it!” he shouted to Pablo. “We did it, amigo!”

When he heard no answer, he twisted around and looked at his friend. Pablo was hanging lifeless in his shoulder harness, his hands still on the fifty-caliber machine gun. Twin holes in his forehead had blown the entire back of bis skull off.

“You gave your life for our leader, Pablo. I will make sure Perro Loco knows of your sacrifice,” he whispered to the spirit of his longtime friend.

As he passed over the eastern city limits of Managua, Eduardo plucked the microphone off the instrument panel.

He depressed the thumb-switch and began talking in a prearranged code on a set frequency. “This is Messenger. The telegram has been delivered. I repeat, the telegram has been delivered.”

After a few moments and a burst of static, a voice answered. “Was the head of the household there to accept it?”

“Si,” Eduardo said, remembering the shadow in the window. “Absolutely!”

 

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A week later, Ben Raines and his team, which now included by unanimous agreement Harley Reno and Hammer Hammerick, gathered in his office at his command center at Fort Hood, Texas.

On his desk in front of him he had a newspaper spread out, its large headlines reading, “Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Honduras Declare War on Mexico.”

Ben shook his head. “How could a helicopter fly all the way from Mexico, crossing Guatemala, Honduras, and half of Nicaragua without being seen, and without having help from the other countries involved?”

Mike Post, his Chief of Intelligence Services, gave a short laugh. “It couldn’t, and it didn’t, Ben,” he said, flipping some satellite photos onto the desk.

“Our analysts say they tracked the chopper from somewhere in Belize a couple of days prior to the hit on Montenegro’s palace. That Huey didn’t come from Mexico, it came from Belize, and it landed several times in both Honduras and Guatemala, so they had to be helping whoever sent it.”

“And I’ll bet the son of a bitch who sent it is the same man who was declared the de facto leader of Nicaragua, Perro Loco,” Coop added with disgust in his voice.

Post nodded as he filled his pipe with black tobacco. “That seems a pretty safe bet, Coop.”

Ben glanced at Mike. “Any way we can show these pictures

 

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to Jean-Francois Chapelle, the Secretary General of the UN.?”

“Sure,” Mike answered with a shrug. “In fact, both Cecil Jeffreys and Secretary of State Blanton have had extensive meetings with Chapelle telling him just that.”

“And?” Ben asked.

“He says all he can do is pass the information along to both Mexico and Nicaragua, but it’s his understanding that it won’t make much difference. Montenegro was an extremely popular figure in Nicaragua, as is this Perro Loco now, and everyone has seen the pictures on every television network in the world of a helicopter with Mexican markings blowing the shit out of the great man, as well as a couple of dozen media reporters.”

“So the die is cast?”

Mike nodded. “There is little we can do to prevent an all-out war between Mexico and its southern neighbors. Hell, even Belize, though not officially at war with Mexico, is lending covert assistance to the rebels.”

“Has President Diego Martinez of Mexico asked for our help?” Coop asked.

Mike shook his head. “Blanton has unofficially offered it if it’s needed, but so far Martinez seems to think they can hold the others off alone.”

From a corner chair where he sat next to Anna, Harley Reno looked up and said, “Bullshit!”

Ben grinned. “No, Harley, don’t hold back. Tell us what you really think.”

Harley returned Ben’s smile. “I said, that’s crap. Hammer and I’ve been all over the country down there, and the Mexican Army is fat and lazy from years of no conflict and relatively peaceful times. Their command is top-heavy, too many generals and not enough grunts to get the job done. They’re gonna get their butts kicked, mark my words.”

Ben glanced at Hammer. “You agree, Scott?”

“Yes, sir,” Hammer answered. “Harley’s right. The Mexi-

 

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can Army is way outclassed by the Nicaraguans. They might do all right against Honduras and Guatemala, whose forces are little more than peasants that’ve been given guns they don’t know how to use for the most part. But the Nicaraguans have been fighting steadily for the past twenty years. First against each other, then against the U.S. in the bad old days when we supported the right-wing death squads.”

Harley nodded. “Every kid down there is taught to handle a rifle before he can walk. Hell, five-and six-year-old boys can field-strip an AK-47 and put it back together in the dark.”

“So you think we’d better plan on providing some help to Mexico?” Ben asked.

Both men nodded.

“I agree,” Ben said. “I only hope it’s not too late when Martinez decides to ask for it.”

“Ben,” Coop said, “we could save some time by having our battalions mass on the Rio Grande. We could have them there and ready to move out and when Martinez finally realizes he needs us, we’d be ready.”

“Good idea, Coop.” Ben turned to Corrie. “Corrie, get on the horn and get me Ike McGowen from Batt 2, Jackie Malone from Batt 12, and get Buddy and his Special Ops Battalion 8 up here as well.”

“Yes, sir,” Corrie said, bending over her radio and beginning to make the calls.

“You think three battalions will be enough?” Mike asked.

Ben shrugged. “I hope so. It’s all I can spare right now until I make sure that Otis Warner can hold on to his position and keep his word about negotiating a peace. I don’t dare pull the others off the border with the USA until I’m sure that little fracas is over.”

“Speaking of that,” Jersey said, “have you heard anything else about Claire Osterman, Mike?”

“We’ve been monitoring the airways around the clock, looking for that peculiar whistle the Unitel scramblers she’s using make, and we’ve had a few hits.”

 

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“Yeah?” Ben asked.

“Uh-huh. Of course, the scrambler changes the voices so we don’t know for sure if it’s really Osterman or someone pretending to be her, but there have been some messages back and forth between her and Perro Loco, as well as between some bases in the USA and wherever she’s located.”

“You think Otis Warner is cooperating with her?”

Mike shook his head. “No, there’s no chance of that. In fact, we have some preliminary intel that she sent a team of assassins to try and kill him.”

“Then the traffic between Osterman and other USA bases means she still has some support among the military,” Ben said.

“Of course she does,” Mike said, puffing on his pipe. “A lot of people were pissed off when Otis Warner took over and sued for peace. The military in the USA doesn’t want to lose its job, or its perks. If Warner’s not careful, she’s gonna hand him his ass in a can, and you can bet some general is gonna tie a bow around it for her.”

The two T-34 trainer jets took off from the air base at Gatlingburg three hours before dawn and assumed a south-by-southwest heading. The two-man jets were designed to train young pilots and not primarily as fighter or bomber aircraft, but they were capable of carrying a couple of small missiles, and each had a twenty-caliber machine gun mounted on each wing. Relatively slow, they flew at just under 400 miles an hour, and would only have enough fuel for one or two passes at the base in Arkansas if they wanted to be able to make it back to Tennessee.

For the first hundred miles, they flew below five hundred feet so as not to alert SUSA radar of their presence or of their point of origin. The SUSA had owned the skies in the recent war against the USA, but since the peace process be-231

 

gan, the number of flights had been curtailed to save precious gasoline, which was needed for civilian use.

Lieutenant Jimmy Bodine was at the helm of the first jet, and his friend from flight school, Tim Bundick, was flying the second. They flew alone, not needing a navigator for the short flight to Arkansas.

Bodine flicked his corn switch. “Raven One to Raven Two, you copy?”

Bundick answered back, “Raven Two, I copy.”

“We’re thirty minutes out. You take the housing units, and I’ll target the officers’ buildings. Over.”

“Roger that, Raven One. Good hunting, Jimmy.”

“You, too, Timmy.”

An alert air radar warning operator at Fort Chaffe Army Base in Fort Smith, Arkansas, saw the twin blips on his radar when they were two hundred miles out, the maximum range of his unit.

Bill Young glanced at his watch: 0500. Damn, thirty minutes before reveille. The lieutenant is gonna kill me if I wake him up an’ this is nothin’ but a ghost echo, Young thought.

He shook his head, remembering his training. “Damn, gotta do it,” he mumbled to himself as he picked up the phone.

Lieutenant Carl Aycock fumbled sleepily for the phone, stifling a yawn as he answered, “Yeah?”

“Lieutenant, it’s me, Bill Young over at radar.”

Aycock looked at his alarm clock. “This better be important, Young,” he snarled.

“It is, sir. I got two spooks on radar, about a hundred and fifty miles out and approaching at three hundred fifty miles an hour.”

Aycock sat up straight in bed. “No ID beacon or radio call advising us of friendlies in the neighborhood?”

“No, sir.”

 

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“Sound the alarm, Young. I want a full alert and I want it yesterday!” “Yes, sir!”

As the two jets dived at the base, coming in low out of the morning sun, men were running toward AA batteries and machine-gun emplacements, some still pulling up pants and buttoning shirts while the large Klaxon horns around the base blared their warnings.

Lieutenant Aycock had just run from the door when the first bomb hit the Officers’ Quarters. The explosion lifted him off his feet and flung him forward as if a giant had flicked him with a finger. He rolled frantically on the tarmac to put out the flames on the back of his shirt. As he sat up, a leg landed next to him and bounced once before settling on his lap, slowly leaking blood onto his khakis.

Aycock’s eyes widened. Then he leaned to the side and vomited on the cement.

After sounding the alarm, Bill Young got on the radio and began to send out a Mayday under-attack signal. “This is Fort Chaffe radar control. We are under attack by unidentified aircraft … repeat, we are under attack by unidentified aircraft.”

Before he got an answer, a bomb exploded in the Operations Building and Bill Young was engulfed in flames a split second before he was blown through the wall and out onto the ground. He had time for one quick breath before the flames melted his lungs and seared his eyes shut forever.

By the time the T-34’s had made two bombing runs, the AA guns were going full force and the air was full of flak and smoke.

“Raven One to Raven Two, time to boogie, partner. The dance floor’s gettin’ too crowded.”

“Roger that, Raven One, meet you on the other side,” Tim

 

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Bundick answered as he jerked the nose of his jet around and pointed it at the sun.

Lieutenant Jackie Johnson glanced at his copilot, Blackie West, in the P51-E they were flying over Louisiana when the radio crackled to life. “Eagle One, this is base calling Eagle One.”

Johnson flicked the mike switch. “Eagle One here.”

“We got two bogeys attacking Fort Chaffe. They need assistance.”

“Roger, Base. Any ID on the bogeys?”

“All we know is they’re tail burners,” the base contact said, meaning the attackers were jets.

” Shit!” Blackie muttered. He knew they stood little chance against jets in the P51-Es, but being Marines, they were going to try anyway.

“Eagle Two and Eagle Three, you copy that?” Johnson said, keying in the frequency to his wing men on either side of his craft.

“Eagle Two, I copy.”

“Eagle Three, I copy.”

“We’ll circle around to the east and try to come at them out of the sun,” Johnson said, not adding that that was about the only chance they had if the jet pilots were any good at all.

As they approached Fort Chaffe, Johnson got another call. “Eagle One, be advised bogeys headed east at three hundred and fifty knots and ten thousand feet.”

Johnson looked at West. “Only three hundred and fifty knots? Either they’re small jets or they’re trying to conserve fuel for a long trip back.”

Blackie nodded, his teeth showing in a grin. The P51’s could cruise at 380 miles an hour and hit almost five hundred in an attack dive. “Either way, that means we got a chance,”

 

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he said as he reached over and armed the air-to-air missiles under the P51’s wings. “Let’s go huntin’, podna.”

Within thirty minutes, the three Eagle patrol planes had the twin jets in sight below them. Johnson had his patrol flying at twenty thousand feet to conserve fuel and to come at the bogeys from an angle they wouldn’t expect.

He saw a puff of black smoke from the tail burners below as they accelerated. “They’ve seen us. I’ll take the one on the left, Eagle Two, take the one on the right, Eagle Three, you’re backup in case one gets away.”

“Roger that, good luck.”

Johnson pushed the throttles to the maximum forward position as he pushed the nose over the top and they fell like a rocket toward the jets in the distance.

Blackie West leaned forward, his eyes glued to the radar-missile tracking screen, his fingers on the button, ready to fire as soon as the radar locked onto the jet’s hot exhaust gasses.

Eagle One was still two miles back when the radar gave a shrill screech. “We got lock!” West said as he punched the button.

The P51 shuddered as if in orgasm as the missile shot from its wing, arching down in a curving path toward the jet below.

The jet, as if sensing its doom, wiggled its wings and jutted back and forth like a kite in the wind as the ATA missile bore down on it.

Seconds later, the jet was engulfed in a giant fireball and Johnson had to veer off to keep from flying through the debris.

Eagle Two wasn’t as lucky, and its missile passed by the second jet as it made a sharp upward turn and hit the afterburners.

The jet completed the loop and came out of it on the tail of Eagle Two, its 20mm cannons spitting bullets at the P51.

Eagle One was out of position to help, but Eagle Three

 

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was ready and dived at the pair, its engines screaming at full throttle.

Just as the wing of the P51 known as Eagle Two shredded and came apart, the missile from Eagle Three entered the tailpipe of the jet and blew it out of the sky.

Eagle Two pinwheeled down like a duck with a broken wing, two parachutes blooming as the pilot and copilot ejected safely.

“Eagle One to base. Send a whirlybird, we got two down on the ground at …” he hesitated and then read off their coordinates.

“Roger that, Eagle One. Medevac is on the way. Good shooting, guys.”

 

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Perro Loco took the phone from Arnoldo Mendoza when he indicated Claire Osterman was on the line.

“Buenos dias, Madame President,” he said, struggling to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

“Good morning, and congratulations, Comandante Perro Loco. I hear you’re now the head of the Nicaraguan government.”

“Actually, I’m the head of the Nicaraguan military, but in my country it amounts to the same thing,” he answered. “I am now in a position to begin my part of our bargain, Mrs. Osterman. My Nicaraguan troops are already joined with those of Honduras and Guatemala and are making their way toward the southern border of Mexico. We plan to cross the border within two days.”

“Do you anticipate any heavy opposition from the Mexican military?”

“No, not at first. The Mexican Army is very sparse and ill-equipped in the southern portions of the country. The provinces of Chiapas and Oaxaca and Guerro will be easy to take. I don’t think we will face any serious opposition until we near Veracruz and Mexico City.”

“Will they be able to hold you without asking Ben Raines and the SUSA for help?”

“I doubt it. It is my plan to pick up both material and men as I cross Mexico. The military there is not as loyal as it

 

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should be, and will tend to fight for whoever will pay them the most money, especially the generals.”

“My intelligence sources tell me Ben Raines has ordered several of his battalions to gather along the border with Mexico, but until Presidente Martinez asks for his help, he is powerless to act.”

Loco shrugged, though Osterman couldn’t see him. “It is of no importance. I have studied this Ben Raines and feel that if he dares to join the fight, I will be able to defeat him.”

There was a pause. Then Osterman said in a low voice, “Don’t make the mistake of underestimating Ben Raines, comandante. He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s a damn good commander, and he’s never yet been defeated in battle.”

“There is a first time for everything, Madame President,” Loco answered curtly. “Now, when can I expect you to make your move against Raines from the north?”

“I’ll need at least two more weeks before my forces are strong enough to forcibly retake my rightful position as head of my country. Immediately after that, I will resume my war against the SUSA and Ben Raines.”

“That is good,” Loco said. “It will take me that long to make my way up Mexico to Mexico City. At that time, Martinez will surely ask Raines for help … He will have no choice if he wishes to remain in power.”

“Until then, Comandante Perro Loco. Good luck.”

“You also, Madame President.”

Perro Loco was as good as his word. His forces from Belize under the command of General Juan Dominguez crossed the border, and immediately took control of the province of Quin-tana Roo and the Yucatan Peninsula before heading northward toward Campeche and the Laguna de Terminos.

General Jaime Pena, whom Loco had appointed as supreme commander of the combined Guatemalan and Honduran and Nicaraguan forces, crossed the Guatemalan border

 

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at Piedras Negras and began his march across Chiapas toward Villahermosa where he planned to join forces with Dominguez and his group.

Their plans of action were markedly similar, and very effective. They would move to surround the isolated Army and air bases, and then give the commanding officers the choice of annihilation or joining their forces. Once the officers contacted Mexico City and were informed there would be no last-minute rescues, in most cases, the generals and captains turned their men over to Pena and Dominguez.

The soldiers were told they would be well paid and their families would be left alone if they fought with the Nicaraguans. If they chose to resist, they and everyone in their villages and towns would be murdered. Left with little choice, and feeling abandoned by their own leaders, the soldiers readily switched allegiance and Perro Loco’s armies swelled in both numbers and amounts of equipment and material while sustaining virtually no losses themselves.

Villahermosa was to be the first real test, and the soldiers there were backed up by the Naval force in the province of Tabasco at the port city of Paraiso. President Martinez had ordered the only serviceable aircraft carrier in the Mexican Navy to stand offshore in the Bay of Campeche and give air support to the beleaguered Army base at Villahermosa on the banks of the Gryalva River.

Since Villahermosa was only thirty miles inland, the planes would have no trouble making the trip to defend the Army base from the air.

While still twenty-five miles away, Pena and Dominguez met to decide their strategy in the upcoming fight for Villahermosa.

Pena, who was the senior officer, spoke first. “Juan, our most pressing problem is going to be the air support from the carrier in the Bay of Campeche,” he said as both men leaned over a table in the command tent with a map of the region on it.

 

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“I agree, Jaime.”

“Do we know what kind of planes the Mexicans have?”

Dominguez opened a notebook and leafed through several pages of intel reports before finding the correct one. “Here it says they are for the most part surplus S-2’s from the United States World War II fleet.”

“S-2’s?’

“Yes. Two-seater trainers used for carrier landings, twin props, limited ordnance other than 20mm canons on the wings and perhaps a few small bombs. No missile capabilities I am aware of.”

“So our tanks will be safe unless they suffer a direct hit from the bombs?”

“That is correct, but on the other hand, with no jet engines, it will be hard for our Stinger handheld missiles to bring them down also.”

Pena nodded. “Yes, that is true. So, let’s send in the tanks and jeeps with the fifty-caliber machine guns as our advance guard, telling the gunners to concentrate on the airplanes while the ground troops take care of the base defenses.”

“That is a good plan, Jaime,” Dominguez said, wagging his head. “We may lose a few infantry, but after all,” he said, grinning and spreading his arms, “they are much easier to replace than tanks and helicopters.”

The battle was joined just after sunup, the tanks having moved into place during the predawn darkness when they were safe from the S-2’s which had no night-vision capabilities.

The Army base at Villahermosa was completely surrounded by the Pena/Dominguez forces, with tanks and jeeps with machine guns occupying the high ground on all sides of the base. As the infantry moved in under cover of the tanks’ big guns, the machine-gunners concentrated their

 

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fire on the propeller-driven planes from the carrier in the Bay of Campeche.

Out of seventy-five S-2’s that assaulted the ground troops, less than twenty made it back to the carrier. The rest were brought down by a combination of withering fire from the machine guns and the inexperience of the Mexican pilots, some of whom flew into the ground while trying to strafe the infantry. One flew low enough to be shot out of the sky by a soldier with an AK-47, an unheard-of event.

By midafternoon, the soldiers on the base ceased firing and a jeep with a white flag flying pulled out onto the main road. The commander of the base, General Boliver Munoz, was standing next to the driver as it approached General Pena’s command tank.

“General Pena, I wish to surrender my command,” Munoz said without preamble as the jeep rolled to a stop in front of the tank.

Pena stuck his head out of the turret. “An unconditional surrender?” he asked.

Munoz hung his head. “Si. I only ask that my men be treated as prisoners of war and accorded the rights they deserve.”

“General Munoz,” Pena said, his lips pursed. “Here are my terms. Your men will agree to fight with my army and pledge their loyalty to me and to Nicaragua, or I will order the torching of every home in every village within fifteen miles of the Army base.”

Munoz sputtered. “But… but that’s preposterous!”

Pena glanced into the tank beneath him and nodded once. The fifty-caliber machine gun sticking out of the front of the tank chattered to life, cutting Munoz’s body to shreds and blowing him off the back of the jeep to land in a pool of blood and guts in the dirt of the road.

Pena addressed the driver, whose face was blanched pale and whose eyes were wide with fright. “Go back to the base and present my demands to whomever is second in command

 

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to General Munoz. Tell them you have one hour to decide. Then I will level the base and kill everyone within fifteen miles of this place. Do you understand?”

The driver, too frightened to speak, nodded rapidly as he ground the gears of the jeep and whirled it around with spinning tires and headed back toward the base.

“Radio the troops and tell them to stand down for one hour. I have a feeling this battle is over,” Pena said as he ducked back into the interior of the tank.

It didn’t take the troops an hour to decide. In less than thirty minutes, they began to march off the base, their hands on their heads, their officers leading them.

A colonel with a name badge reading Villareal was at the front of the line.

“I see you have more good sense than General Munoz had,” Pena said to him from the top of his tank.

Villareal nodded. “Yes, sir. My men are ready to follow your orders, for the sake of their families and the people of the province of Tabasco.”

Pena smiled. “Now, let their be no mistake, Colonel. If even one of your men betrays our trust and fails to fight for us, I will be forced to send a contingent of men and helicopters back here and carry out my promise to destroy every living thing in this province. Do I make myself clear?”

Villareal nodded, his jaw muscles bulging as he clamped his teeth together.

“Tell your men, Colonel. The lives of everyone they leave behind depends on them. Just one traitor among them will mean the deaths of thousands of civilians.”

Perro Loco meanwhile had sent his helicopter and air force planes to the area over Chiapas, since the jungle there was not amenable to ground troop activity and the roads were

 

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too poor for easy movement of tanks, halftracks, and troop-transport trucks.

“My plan,” he explained to Strunk and Valdez, “is to form a pincer movement up through southern Mexico. The ground forces, led by Dominguez and Pena, will move the heavy armor and artillery up along the eastern part of the country, which has better roads and less jungle, while the western, more wild and mountainous jungle areas will be cleared by helicopter and air force units.”

Strunk shook his head doubtfully. “But, comandante, air-power alone has never been enough to subjugate a population unless it was followed up by infantry.”

“That is normally correct, Jaime,” Loco said, a bland smile on his face, “but this situation is somewhat different. All we need to do is to cut off the supply routes from the main Army headquarters in Mexico City to the western bases, and the soldiers there will have nothing to fight with and no one to shoot at with their rifles. That is the mistake the Americans made in Vietnam. Instead of going for the head of the country, Hanoi, they wasted time and men on the outer provinces. I do not intend to make the same mistake. Once I take Mexico City, the outer provinces will fall into line or they will have to learn to eat dirt.”

 

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? Ben Raines called his battalion leaders to meet with his team in his office to discuss the war in Mexico being waged by Perro Loco’s troops.

General Ike McGowen sat directly across from Ben, and as usual had one of his breast pockets stuffed with cheap cigars and the other with candy bars. He was commander of the 502 Brigade, had been a Navy SEAL in his younger days, and was Ben’s oldest and best friend. Broad-chested, with an ample paunch and wide shoulders, he was a big man. Doc Chase was always after him to lose weight, but it was a losing battle. Ike had tried every diet known to man … all without success. The truth was he liked to eat, and he wasn’t about to deprive himself of anything he truly liked to do.

Sitting next to Ike was Jackie Malone, the commander of the 512 Brigade. Jackie was movie-star pretty, but one of the toughest women Ben had ever known. She was strong on discipline, but never asked the men who served under her to do anything she wasn’t prepared to do herself. Any man in her brigade would gladly give his life to protect her. She’d been severely wounded a couple of years ago, but had fully recovered now, and Ben was glad to have her back.

The man next to Jackie was Buddy Raines, Ben’s son. Ben hadn’t raised Buddy. In fact, he hadn’t known of his existence until a few years ago when Buddy showed up in a Rebel camp. Buddy’s mother, who called herself Sister Voleta, had hated Ben and eventually had become insane. In an aborted

 

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attempt on Ben’s life, she’d been killed by Ike McGowen. In his early twenties, Buddy was one of the youngest of the brigade commanders, and had charge of the 508 Brigade, which consisted mainly of Special Ops troops. He received no special treatment because he was Ben’s son, and had earned his position by hard work and an instinct for Special Ops work.

Doc Chase and Mike Post from Intel, along with the rest of Ben’s team, sat at the back of the room, waiting to see what Ben had to say.

“Is it too hot in here for you, Ike?” Ben asked.

Dee shook his head, sleeving sweat from his forehead. “No, why?”

“I notice you’re sweating.”

“The fat bastard’s always sweating,” Doc Chase opined from the back of the room.

Ike gave him a dirty look over his shoulder. “It must be a thyroid condition,” he said. “If our medical team was worth a shit, it would’ve already been diagnosed and treated.”

“Thyroid condition my ass!” Chase said, laughing. “It’s called a surplus of adipose tissue, you hog. I’ve told you for years you need to shed some weight before your heart stops and you drop like a stone.”

“Doc, I keep tellin’ you it’s not fat, it’s muscle …” Ike began, until Ben interrupted them both.

“Okay, guys, save it for later. We’ve got some serious business to discuss.”

Jackie leaned forward, her face lighting up with anticipation. “We going into Mexico, Ben?”

Ben shuffled the papers from Intel Mike had given him. “Well, we certainly are going to need to, sooner or later. Martinez is getting his ass kicked by Perro Loco’s generals.”

“How bad is it, Ben?” Buddy asked, unwrapping a piece of gum and sticking it in his mouth. No one on Ben’s team had ever seen him without gum in his mouth.

“Bad. General Pena and Dominguez have taken over the

 

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base at Villahermosa as well as the Navy yard at Pariso on the coast.”

“Villahermosa’s the largest base south of Mexico City, and the Navy yard at Pariso is the main supply route for the entire lower half of the country. That means he’s cut off all material supply routes to the southern bases,” Ike said, unconsciously reaching for a candy bar in his shirt pocket.

Doc Chase leaned forward and whispered, “You eat that and I’ll shoot you in the back of the head.”

Ben glanced down to hide his smile as he answered, “Yeah, and Perro Loco’s smarter than we gave him credit for. He’s not even bothering to waste his time on most of the smaller bases, which Martinez had pretty well dug in waiting for his attacks. He’s hop-skipped over them and is full-on heading for Mexico City.”

Buddy nodded, smiling grimly. “Sure, it’s brilliant. Just like with a snake, cut off its head and the body dies. If he takes Mexico City, the other bases won’t have any leadership, and since he’s also cut off their supplies, game over.”

“Exactly,” Ben said.

“So, when’s Martinez going to ask for our help?” Jackie asked.

“He’s not ready to go public with an admission that he can’t handle Perro Loco. That would be political suicide.”

“So, political suicide is better than ending up on the end of Perro Loco’s bayonet,” Ike said, putting the candy bar back in his pocket and glaring at Doc Chase.

“He has, however, said that if we wanted to send in a Special Ops battalion, he wouldn’t object.”

Buddy nodded. “He’s no dummy either. If we can manage to slow Perro Loco down and keep him away from Mexico City, that’ll give Martinez time to get his southern troops organized and moving north on Perro Loco’s flanks and rear. If Martinez can catch Perro Loco’s troops in a pincer movement, far from their own lines of supply, he’s liable to win

 

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the whole shooting match and we won’t hog any of the credit.”

Harley Reno held up his hand, like a child in school who knew the answer to a question. “Permission for Hammer and me to go along, Ben?”

Buddy looked over his shoulder at Harley, his eyebrows raised. “Uh, I’ve pretty much got my own team …”

“Why do you ask, Harley?” Ben asked.

“We just got a shipment of new toys from an engineer friend of mine down in Corpus Christi, Texas. He’s managed to fit our Berettas and Uzis with silencers. These are some primo gadgets, and he sent two hundred of each of them as a special favor to me. If we’re gonna be doing some Special Ops exercises deep in Mexico, they might come in real handy.”

Buddy chewed his lip in thought. “You say these silencers work well? The last batch we had wore out after only one clip. Couldn’t depend on ‘em worth a damn.”

“Not these. With these suckers all you’ll hear is the firing bolt clicking back and forth.”

Buddy took in Harley’s six-and-a-half-foot height and broad shoulders as he considered his request to join his Special Ops team. But it was the eyes that convinced him. They looked like snake eyes, flat and cold as ice. Hammer was only a shade smaller, and looked just as deadly. Buddy nodded. “It’s okay by me, Ben, if you can spare them.”

Jersey and Coop immediately jumped to their feet. “Hey, no fair, Ben. If Harley and Hammer go, we all go,” Jersey said, giving Harley a look. “That’s what the term team means.”

Harley smiled and nodded. “Great,” he said.

“Wait a minute, Ben …” Buddy began.

Ben held up his hand. “Of course, Buddy, the final say-so is yours. But I want it understood, if you take the team along, they’ll be under your command, just like the rest of your Special Ops people.” He cut his eyes to Jersey and Coop.

 

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“And there will be no hotdogging or solo missions. Do I make myself clear?”

Jersey, Coop, Anna, Beth, and Corrie all stared at Buddy, their faces blank. “Of course, Ben,” they all said at once.

Buddy laughed and held up his hands in surrender. “Yeah, right. Okay, it’s all right with me. Hell, you got the best team in the Army so I’d be a fool to turn them down.”

“Corrie,” Ben said, “get with Mike and figure out some radio frequencies for you to monitor so he can keep you up to date on any fresh intel we have.”

He glanced at Ike and Jackie. “You two get your units loaded and ready. We’re gonna put you right on the border with plenty of transportation for a fast move when Martinez finally realizes he can’t win this war without us.”

“Yes, sir,” they said in unison.

“Doc,” Ben said, “get the troops loaded with whatever vaccinations they need for Mexico and load up the med teams with lomotil and antibiotics.” He smiled. “You can’t fight if you’re spending all your time in the latrines.”

“Why don’t you come along too, Ben?” Buddy asked.

Ben shook his head. “I’d love to, but I can’t. One of our Army bases in Arkansas, Fort Chaffe, was just attacked by a pair of jets.”

“What?” several of the participants in the meeting asked at once.

Ben nodded. “Yeah. The jets were old and out of date, and it’s my guess they were sent by Claire Osterman to make us think Warner couldn’t be trusted.”

“What’s he say?” Ike McGowen asked.

“He says they didn’t know anything about it and he certainly didn’t authorize any attacks against us.”

“You believe him?”

“Yeah. I’m convinced he wants peace as bad as we do … worse, since they were getting the worst of it. I think Claire Osterman is behind this and until this Osterman mess is straightened out, I’m gonna need to be here to monitor the

 

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peace process and try to keep Otis Warner in control and on track up there.”

“Is he in serious trouble?”

“I don’t know. Our intel says he’s having some trouble with some of his bases and some of his military, but we just don’t know how deep the rot goes. And until we do, I’m gonna stay here and keep an eye on things.”

“What if Claire regains control of the USA?” Buddy asked.

“It’ll be bad. She won’t rest until either she wins or we do. It’ll be a fight to the death for both countries. And, to make matters worse, we’ll be fighting a war on two fronts, which no country in history has been able to do and win.”

Ike McGowen got to his feet. “Hell, then we’ll just have to make some new history, Ben. It won’t be anything new to us.”

Jackie stood up. “Two fronts or not, we’re not going to let you down, Ben. We’re gonna kick ass and take names.”

 

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“How’re we doin’, boys?” Claire asked.

Herb Knoff, General Bradley Stevens, and Harlan Millard were sitting in her office for the usual breakfast staff meeting.

Stevens answered first. “All in all, not too bad. We hit Raines’s base in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and did extensive damage before our jets were shot out of the sky.”

“Any repercussions?”

“Not yet. So far, Raines still believes Warner didn’t have anything to do with the raid.”

Herb sneered. “Hell, Raines knows that chicken-shit Warner wouldn’t have the balls to do something like that.”

Claire nodded. “I believe you’re correct, Herb. I think we’re wasting our time trying to put a wedge between Warner and Raines. We should be directing all of our energies to regaining control of the government.”

Millard and Knoff glanced at each other, neither daring to remind Claire it’d been her idea to hit the Arkansas base in the first place.

“So, Brad, what are your ideas on that?”

“We’ve had no trouble recruiting personnel so far. In fact, most of the military is behind us, either overtly or covertly.”

“So, why aren’t we in control?”

Bradley spread his arms. “Equipment, primarily. Warner and troops loyal to him control most of the high-tech gear and weapons. About all we have besides side arms are a couple of helicopters older than I am and some halftracks and

 

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HumVees. We don’t have any tanks, or artillery, or fighter aircraft worth a damn.”

“Well, gentlemen, it’s about time we made our move. Perro Loco is well on his way to Mexico City, and if we’re not leading this country by the time he takes it, I’m afraid our deal may be off and he may decide to make a separate peace with the SUSA.”

“What do you want to do, Claire,” Harlan Millard asked.

“We need to make our presence known. Where is the largest airfield near here?”

Bradley Stevens thought for a moment. “That’d be at Oak Ridge, just north of Knoxville. It’s got everything we need, except long-range bombers. It’s primarily a fighter squadron and helicopter repair facility, so there’s plenty of aircraft around for the taking.”

“And how many men do we have we can absolutely count on?”

“Between five and ten thousand, but they’re scattered over the entire state at several small bases. We’ve kept them in place so as not to draw attention to our movements.”

“The time for stealth is over, Brad. I want to take that base and get those aircraft. Once we have the planes, we can get the other equipment by using the attack helicopters in surprise raids on other bases that have what we need.”

“What about troops, Claire?” Millard asked.

“I think they’ll be glad to join us when they see that we’re not going to take any shit from the SUSA or anyone else. Soldiers don’t want peace, they want war. And, by damn, I’m gonna give ‘em war.”

Johnny Roy Lumpkin glanced up from his magazine to see a HumVee approaching the gate in front of his guardhouse. He looked at his watch. Three in the morning. Who the hell could that be? he thought, stifling a yawn as he walked to the door of the vehicle.

 

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He saw two men in BDUs sitting in the front seat and six men in the rear.

“What’s goin’ on, fellahs?” Johnny Roy asked, a pleasant expression on his face. “Out on night maneuvers?”

The driver, whose name tag read King, said, “Yeah, an’ we’re told to report to the officers’ quarters. Where might that be, boy?”

Johnny Roy frowned. “It’s right over there,” he said, pointing to a building on the edge of the base, “but I’m gonna have to see some orders ‘fore I can let you on base.”

“Sure,” the man sitting next to King said, “here are our orders.” He held his hand out and pointed a black revolver with a silencer on the barrel at Johnny Roy’s face.

“What …” he said just before a .38-caliber bullet punched a hole in his forehead and blew out the back of his skull. He dropped like a stone on the concrete.

King didn’t bother getting out of the car to raise the barricade, but accelerated the HumVee right through it, turning the steering wheel until the vehicle was pointed at the officers’ quarters building in the distance.

Thirty minutes later, all fifteen staff and administration officers in the building were dead and King had his pistol in the back of a staff sergeant who was leading them to the pilots’ barracks.

Unlike enlisted men’s barracks, the pilots all had individual rooms, so they had to be gathered one at a time and brought to the mess hall under guard. Once they were all there, King paced in front of them as he talked.

“My name is Colonel James King,” he said. “I’m a member of the Blackshirt Squad, so you know I mean what I say.”

The group of pilots, most of whom were barely out of their teens, all nodded. They’d heard of the Blackshirts and knew they were badasses it was best to stay away from.

“We work for President Claire Osterman, who was ille-

 

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gaily removed from office last year. The man who replaced her is a traitor named Otis Warner. Right now, he is selling out our country to the SUSA by negotiating a peace that will make us weak forever.”

King stopped his pacing and faced the group. “We don’t intend to let that happen. We do intend to take this country back for its rightful leaders. My question to you is, will you fight with us to see that happen?”

One of the men stood up. “If we join you, does that mean the war will start again?”

King nodded. “Yeah, it does. So your choice is join us and fight and fly, or resist us and go back to your farms and chicken ranches and live under the rule of the SUSA the rest of your lives.”

The man who spoke said, “That’s no choice, Colonel. We joined up to fly and fight, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s what I plan to do.”

The remainder of the men stood up, all nodding their heads and looking at each other.

“All right. Your first test is to help us take this base over. We need control of the aircraft and the armaments. It’ll be up to you to help us determine who we can trust to be with us on this.”

King looked over his shoulder and nodded, and the men with him began handing weapons out to the pilots.

By dawn, the base was secure and under the command of Colonel James King. Only about ten percent of the enlisted personnel had refused to go along with the change in command, and were in the brig under guard.

King went to the communications room and had the radio operator contact Claire Osterman’s office in Gatlingburg.

“President Osterman, Colonel James King here. Mission accomplished. The air base at Oak Ridge is under our command.”

“Well done, Colonel King,” Claire said, glancing over her shoulder from the phone in her bedroom at Herb Knoff in

 

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bed and winking. “General Stevens will be in touch later with further orders.”

She hung up the phone, slipped her nightgown off her shoulders, and crawled under the covers. “Herb, it’s time to celebrate.”

Herb grinned as he reached for her. “Yes, ma’am,” he growled.

 

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Captain Raul Benavidez steered his Apache helicopter gunship over the jungles of Chiapas. Gunner Jesus Lopez sat in the front seat, reading his targeting display.

A Mexican military base at San Fernando was their first objective. Orders had come from Comandante Perro Loco to strike this installation quickly, taking the poorly equipped Mexican Army at San Fernando by surprise as the comandante ‘s ground troops began their march up the western regions of Mexico toward Mexico City before sweeping across northern Mexico to take the SUSA.

“Do you see anything?” Raul asked.

“Nothing yet,” Jesus replied. “No radar signals are being picked up by our sensors.”

“Their radar may be down.”

“Don’t count on it. According to the comandante they have radar and five UH-1 choppers at San Fernando. The old Hueys can be deadly fighting machines, if the pilot and gunner know what they are doing.”

“Those stupid Mexicans may not know how to fly them,” Jesus said. He was a Honduran, with a strong dislike for anyone from Mexico.

“They will have SAMs,” Raul assured him. “We’ll be dodging rockets if they pick us up on their radar.”

“You worry too much, capitdn.”

“I worry in order to remain alive.”

“Mexican radar in Chiapas will be very old. It will not

 

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see this Apache. This is why the Americans spent so much money on them forty years ago, before the big war.”

Raul glanced out a side window of the chopper, scanning the jungle while he worked the collectives with his left hand, the throttle with his right. “I hope you are right, Jesus. Remember what is in our orders … Do not destroy any of the UH-l’s on the ground. Comandante Perro Loco says we will need them to fight our way across Mexico, and we are instructed not to hit any fuel tanks.”

“I understand, capitdn. I will not shoot at anything unless it shoots at us.”

“Do you see anything now?” Raul asked again.

“Nothing. It is late in the afternoon and the lazy Federates may be taking their siestas.”

Raul wondered if the Mexican Army was expecting them. The security surrounding their operation had been tight… but was it tight enough?

“We should have a visual sighting of San Fernando any time now,” Jesus said, speaking loudly into his headset to be heard above the drone of the Apache’s rotor.

They must be idiotas, not sending out radar signals.”

“They are Federales. Most of them have not been paid in months because the Mexican government is bankrupt. They do not care.”

“Then we will teach them a lesson,” Raul declared, dropping the Apache to six hundred feet. A second helicopter in their formation, a Hind, descended to the same altitude, a ship flown by a German mercenary named Klaus Hafher, a former Nazi who had escaped General Raines’s attacks on General Field Marshal Bruno Bottger’s forces in Africa. The Hinds were old Russian-made choppers with limited capabilities. Five of them flew in a V-shaped formation behind Raul’s Apache.

“There!” Jesus shouted into the microphone. “There is the San Fernando military base.”

“Why aren’t they shooting at us?” Raul wondered.

 

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“Because they are lazy Mexicans, capitdn. I will send them a rocket. Turn east, toward those adobe walls.”

An air-to-ground Sparrow rocket hissed away from the Apache when Jesus activated its triggering mechanism.

Jesus grinned. “Wake up, estupidos federates!” he cried. “Your siesta is over.”

The slender missile left a vapor trail in its wake as it plunged downward, toward the walls of San Fernando.

“We’re going in,” Raul said. “Blast them to pieces with machine-gun fire. It is time to teach them the lesson you promised them.”

“It will be my pleasure, capitdn,” Jesus said, readying the twin fifty-caliber Gatling guns.

The chatter of machine guns filled the cockpit.

Jesus chuckled softly. “What good is a lesson to a dead man?”

The ship hung close to the treetops of the Chiapas jungle while bullets poured into the Army base at San Fernando. Raul could see men scurrying from the barracks below. Some were half-dressed and appeared to be buckling on their weapons as if they had in fact been taking siestas.

Two older-model Huey helicopters sat on landing pads cut from the jungle. The comandante had said there would be five. Raul wondered where the others might be.

“Commence firing, Capitan Hafner!” he shouted into the mouthpiece.

“Where are the other choppers?” Hamer asked. “I can only see two.”

“They may have been sent back to Mexico City,” Raul replied impatiently. “Just make sure you do not damage the ones on the ground.”

More machine-gun fire banged from the Apache’s guns. Below, Mexican soldiers began to fall, their bodies dancing

 

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dances of death as the large-caliber bullets shredded their flesh.

Raul tipped the nose of the gunship down, reducing their altitude to four hundred feet He was worried that no rockets had been fired at them. Was it possible, as Jesus said, that the Mexicans were taken completely by surprise during the afternoon siesta?

Raul saw Klaus Hafher beginning a low pass over the fortifications at San Fernando in his Hind, his machine guns spitting forth a hail of lead.

Raul wondered why the Mexicans were not firing back at them now. Capturing the outpost at San Fernando was going to be very easy, he thought.

“I see something!” Jesus cried.

“What is it?”

“Aircraft moving toward us. Two, or maybe three. They are flying very low, capitdn.”

The hair on the back of Raul’s neck stirred as he had a sudden thought. Perhaps the Mexicans were not so stupid after all. What if we’ve flown into a trap?

Sweat pooled under his armpits as he quickly looked back and forth, searching the skies for signs of any other surprises that might be awaiting them over the jungles below.

The dark shapes coming toward them were almost invisible against the greens and yellows of the jungle foliage. Probably painted with camouflage so as to blend in, Raul thought as he gripped the throttle and collective with hands suddenly slick with sweat.

“Captain Hafher,” Raul spat into his microphone. “I’ve got bogies at six o’clock low … repeat bogies at six o’clock low.”

A burst of static was followed by Hafher’s German accent. “I see nothing. You must be mistaken …”

“Look again, you fool,” Raul shouted. “They’re camouflaged. Use your radar … now!”

 

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Captain Klaus Hafiier suddenly had two blips on his radar screen, both flying very low over tropical forest reaching the walls of San Fernando. “Damn,” he muttered, “where did those bastards come from?”

Flying at the rear of the formation, he spoke into his radio as he gripped the M24’s stick with the throttle wide open.

“Captain Benavidez! I have two of them on my screen. Two airships. Choppers, probably Hueys from the way they’re moving. Activate rocket ignition when you can confirm a hit.”

“They are too low!” a voice replied from another M24 Hind flying outer wing in their V-shaped formation. “I have no fix. Repeat. I have no fix.”

Klaus knew the Hueys were capable of quick maneuvers and dangerously low flight, if the pilot knew what he was doing. It was hard to bring one down from the air with the older Soviet rockets they had on board the M24’s, small missiles with an out-of-date guidance system relying solely upon heat, often misfiring at a vapor trail or following the wash of a turbine engine instead of the flying ship itself, allowing smart pilots to make sharp turns to avoid their rockets. While the Soviet-made rockets were excellent for ATG, air-to-ground, firing, they stacked up poorly against the more advanced rockets with computerized guidance systems. Most frustrating of all, the Hueys somehow made false echoes on radar screens, causing rockets or cannon fire to go wide.

 

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“Let them have a taste of machine-gun fire,” Klaus commanded, flipping switches on his twin-mount M-60 machine guns. These big guns required visual targeting, a difficult task while flying an M24 in hot pursuit, and the M-60’s frequently jammed due to rust in this humid tropical climate. Comandante Perro Loco knew about the problems aboard the Hinds, and still he ordered them into battle with the Apaches as if pilots under his command and their Hinds were expendable. And as the war began, it seemed no one in the high command cared about equipment disadvantages, or badly needed repairs to planes and helicopters. Many of the air wars they fought now were like suicide missions.

The chatter of machine-gun fire came from a ship to Klaus’s left as they sped over the dark forest below. Klaus’s altimeter read less than four hundred feet, and the approaching Hueys appeared to be even lower, making them far more difficult targets for machine guns, cannons, or rockets. At this altitude and speed the bulky Hinds handled like a school bus rather than a flying machine. Hafner was sweating as he used all of his skill to keep the chopper in the air and on course. Flying like this, he had little chance to fire his machine guns accurately, but triggered off a few rounds just to let the Hueys know he meant business.

But with one Apache gunship in this squadron, Klaus felt the sheer weight of superior technology would give them the advantage. Silently, he prayed he wouldn’t be one of the M24’s shot down during this engagement. Yet he had to stay out in front of the formation to show Captain Raul Benavidez he had courage in battle. He could not lag behind. His pride would not allow it. His arm muscles began to knot and burn with the effort it took to keep the Hind flying level. Damn, he thought, this humid jungle air is like flying through water.

“One of the blips has turned around!” It was Benavidez’s voice over the radio. “It is coming back toward us …”

“I don’t see it!” the third pilot in their formation said. “Give me a mark! I can’t pick it up on my screen!”

 

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Klaus recognized the terror in Diego Ponce’s voice, despite heavy static through his headset, a common failing of Hinds when the humidity was high, which caused all manner of electrical quirks in the guidance systems and in their radios.

“Something has been fired! I can see its burn trace. Go down!” Klaus said, feeling his palms grow even wetter with sweat on the controls.

“It’s a rocket!”

“Evade, evade now!” he screamed into the microphone, jerking back on the collective at the same time he tried to twist the throttle for even more speed, praying the Hind wouldn’t turn turtle on him or clip the jungle trees, which seemed mere feet below his tires now.

All members of the squad sent their M24’s down to low altitudes to escape the missile, while the Apache flown by Captain Benavidez remained at five hundred feet.

Klaus took a quick glance at one of the other M24’s when it nosedived out of formation, swooping down toward the jungle.

“I’m getting something on my warning system …” Lieutenant Ponce scarcely got the words out of his mouth before his chopper exploded, sending an aftershock across the jungle below them and setting some of the trees on fire.

Klaus watched Ponce’s helicopter gunship go down in a ball of flames, coming apart as it spiraled toward the earth, leaving a plume of smoke and flames in its wake.

“Fire! Fire! I’ve got a target!”

Klaus fired one of his rockets. A finger of orange flame marked its passage away from his chopper.

Klaus watched the rocket shoot away from his gunship with his heart in his throat. Diego Ponce was already among the dead from this helicopter engagement, and the fight had only begun. He wondered how many more of his comrades would die.

“I’m hit!” a crackling voice shouted. “One of my rotor blades is …” His cry ended with a terrific explosion off to

 

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Klaus’s right. Another Hind burst into flames, flipping nose-over-tail amid an inferno. Oddly, the helicopter’s machine guns were firing as it went crashing into the treetops below. Then one of its unlaunched rockets detonated, blasting trees out of the ground in a rapidly spreading circle.

Klaus took a deep breath. He saw a Huey making straight for the squad’s formation, a suicidal move for a helicopter pilot at this altitude.

Klaus fixed his targeting sights on the Huey and pulled a trigger on a rocket. The swish of burning fuel made a faint sound above the staccato of his rotor. A fiery vapor trail left one launching tube. Then the Huey gunship suddenly disappeared on his screen. It was not possible, and yet he had seen the blip vanish himself.

“Where is it?” he cried, just as the rocket he launched went sailing into a black hole in the rain forest.

“It is gone! I don’t see it,” Raul exclaimed. “A big chopper cannot simply vanish like that.”

Klaus’s rocket ignited a stand of trees, brightening the sky briefly. He had missed the Huey completely and it did not make any sense, how an airship could be there at one moment, and then disappear entirely in a matter of seconds. It was not logical, he thought. Did these Mexicans have some kind of new weapon, making their aircraft invisible? Or were their pilots simply that good at the controls?

“I’m hit!” a slurred voice screamed, as one of the choppers to Klaus’s left disintegrated in flames, twisting out of the sky in looping arcs. The Hind went out of sight, exploding upon impact, setting more trees aflame.

A split second later Klaus saw a flash of light off to his right. A Hind was struck by a rocket and it went down like a flaming ball of heavy metal, dropping straight down into the forest with a bang.

am going to die today, Klaus thought. How is this possible, against only two enemy helicopters?p>

“Captain Benavidez!” a voice said. “We are flying over

 

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batteries of antiaircraft guns. They are shooting rockets up at us, and cannons are spitting lead all over the jungle below.”

Klaus looked beneath his gunship. The trees were alive with winking lights scattered among the flames from the burning Hinds that’d crashed, and the distant boom of cannons could be heard above the whine of his turbines and the hammering of his rotors through the air. Muzzle flashes illuminated the pathways of cannon and machine-gun shells, and bright orange tracers lit up the sky in winking fingers of death.

“I am hit. Going down!” Klaus did not recognize the pilot’s voice. Their squad was taking a terrible beating … It was almost as if they had been lured into a nest of ground-to-air rocket launchers and antiaircraft gun batteries.

Something struck the underbelly of his chopper, followed by a pain so intense Klaus let out an unconscious yell, leaving him gasping for air. A horrible burning began in his left foot, shooting up his leg. His boot went flying past his face, slamming against the roof of his gunship cabin. The chopper tilted crazily, driven out of control by the impact from a cannon shell.

Blood sprayed the cockpit, splattering the Plexiglas windshield, and in dim lights behind the control panel, Klaus noticed that his lower left leg was missing, blown off just below his knee by a Mexican cannon. Air pressure fell in the cabin and a map, clipped to a visor above his head, was sucked out of a hole in the M24’s steel-plated floor. An involuntary scream came from his throat.

He closed his eyes, gritting his teeth, fighting back the pain racing up his leg. And now he had no foot with which to control the rudder or the speed of the tail rotor. He felt the chopper begin what felt like a ground-spin, although his altimeter said he was still three hundred feet in the air. His mind would not function properly due to the pain, and his vision was blurred, his forehead and eyes smeared with blood from his shattered leg.

 

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Another M24 broke into pieces far to his right, blanketed by flames and smoke. Klaus’s radio crackled, but there was no voice from the pilot being shot out of the skies, only static as his last message never made it to his squadron leader.

The drum of antiaircraft guns became a rhythm from the dark forest, pounding, blasting away as Klaus’s Hind began a slow descent he could not control. His mind calmed as he realized he was going to die over this godforsaken country, fighting for a man he hardly knew, for a cause he didn’t understand.

“Son of a… !” Another pilot attempted a radio message in the last seconds of his life, before his chopper was hit by a hail of cannon fire.

Klaus’s life flashed before him, his childhood in Germany and his enlistment in the New Federation Army headed by a blond giant named Bruno Bottger. Bottger had made so many promises to his new recruits, promises of a better world and an easier life for all who followed him.

Then the collapse of his Nazi-style regime, after a bitter war across Europe. Everyone believed General Field Marshal Bruno Bottger was dead, until he surfaced a few years later with his New World Order, headquartered in Pretoria, South Africa, proclaiming he had millions of followers and a better-equipped army to fight against Democratic tyranny.

Klaus Hafher had wanted to believe in this New World Order, as so many others had.

His M24 circled closer to the earth, out of control because he had no foot to guide it. Sheets of pain ran up his thigh to his belly, and he felt sick to his stomach.

Using the stump where his foot should have been, he placed bare bone and bleeding flesh on a rudder pedal and twisted the throttle. The pain almost caused him to black out when exposed, shattered bone pressed down, stabilizing the rudder.

The turbines responded with a roar, lifting the Hind just in the nick of time before he crashed in the jungle. Klaus

 

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ignored the white-hot pain in his stump of a leg to keep pressure on the rudder pedal.

He saw jungle underneath him.

“I am going down!” someone shrieked into his headphones, a voice frightened by hysteria he could not recognize.

will not go down, Klaus promised himself. will stay in the air, no matter what.

An M24 to his right blew apart, pieces flying, chunks of metal sucked into the downdraft of his rotor blades.

“Oh, no!” he gasped, feeling his gunship shudder in midair when something struck the tip of a swirling blade.

He fought the controls with all his strength, but with a nagging sensation that he was losing consciousness due to the loss of blood from his ruined leg. The Hind would not obey his commands when he tried to steady it.

It happened beyond his control, when a fragment of a torn M24 sheared off one of his rotor blades. The Hind flipped over, flying upside down, fluttering like a duck shot by hunters until it was driven into the jungle. Klaus Hafher was killed instantly.

 

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Raul Benavidez turned the Apache toward the approaching Huey choppers as two of the Soviet-made Hinds in his chopper squadron plummeted into the Mexican jungle rain forest below them. His support squad was going down in flames. His radio crackled with distress messages.

“Fire when you have a target locked on, Jesus,” he said into the headset. “We’ll head straight toward them.”

“Si, capitdn,” Jesus replied, focusing his HUD on a tiny display. “I have one now.”

“Fire a rocket,” Raul cried.

Jesus pressed a small red button and a missile sped away from the Apache.

“This will be one dead Mexican pilot,” Jesus said as the rocket’s vapor trail raced toward a flashing symbol on his radar targeting system.

Seconds later, a fiery ball exploded above the treetops west of San Fernando.

“Got him!” Jesus shouted.

“Find the other one!” Raul demanded, keeping the Apache low, so dangerously close to the roof of the jungle Raul could see leaves and branches waving in the prop-wash of his Apache.

“I have him,” Jesus said. “Wait until I have a fix on his position.”

Raul watched the first Huey go down in a tangled mass

 

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of metal, crashing into the jungle surrounded by flames. “Do not wait too long, Jesus.”

Another rocket hissed away from the Apache.

“Adios, estupido mexicano,” Jesus said.

The second UH-1 became a flying inferno. Pieces of the aircraft tumbled into the palm trees … Raul could hear the distant roar of exploding aircraft fuel as the chopper fell apart in midair.

“Bueno,” he whispered into his microphone, glancing over his shoulder to see how many of the Hinds in his squadron had been lost.

Only two remained in the sky behind them.

“We will fly back over the fortress at San Fernando,” he told Jesus. “Strafe them with machine-gun fire. Make certain no one is left alive before we go down …”

Bodies lay all over the compound. Blood mingled with white caliche earth inside the walls. The Apache and a lumbering Hind occupied empty space between a pair of disabled Hueys and six armored personnel carriers.

Captain Benavidez surveyed the carnage around him, a satisfied grin on his face.

“We have taken San Fernando,” he said to gunner Jesus Lopez. “Radio the comandante. Tell him the good news.”

“Should I tell him we lost four of our Soviet choppers?” Jesus asked.

“It will not matter. Tell him we have captured two of the American Hueys and six APCs.”

“He will not care that we lost four gunships?”

“They were old. Out of date. We had no spare parts for them.”

“And the men who flew them?”

Raul chuckled. “Perro Loco has no love for mercenaries who fight only for money. He uses them, but he does not

 

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trust them. The Soviet ships were expendable, and so were the men who flew them.”

“But isn’t it true that we all fight for the money, capitdn? “

“Of course, Jesus, but we also fight for the cause of our great leader. Comandante Perro Loco understands this. Send him the message. We have won a big victory today. I know he will be pleased.”

A Mexican soldier lying near the door of an adobe barracks groaned, digging his fingers into a pool of blood spreading around him.

Raul drew his Colt .45 automatic pistol and walked over to the wounded Federale.

“Are you in pain, bastardo? ” he asked, jacking a round into the firing chamber.

The young Mexican looked up with pain-glazed eyes.

Raul shot him in the head. The echo of his pistol filled the walled compound at San Fernando.

Covering his progress with the pistol, he made a quick inspection of the small compound. Crates of fifty-caliber machine-gun bullets rested in an abandoned bunker. The Federale garrison was a storehouse for ammunition.

But when he entered a shadowy warehouse he found the best news of all. Two dozen American-made rockets lay beneath a piece of canvas.

“Now we can arm the Apaches and the Comanches,” he whispered softly. “Mexico City will be ours.”

He strolled back out in the sunlight, ignoring the dead Federales scattered around the compound. He strode over to the Apache while Jesus was raising the comandante’s new headquarters at the Presidential Palace in Nicaragua.

“Inform the comandante that we have captured two of the UH-l’s and thousands of rounds of machine-gun shells. But tell him the real prize is more than twenty of the American Sparrow air-to-ground rockets.”

“More than twenty?” Jesus asked, waiting for an answer to his radio call to Belize.

 

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“Two dozen. With these rockets, and the other Apache and Comanche gunships, we will take Mexico City with light casualties.”

Jesus grinned. “Perro Loco will be very happy to hear of our victory.”

Raul nodded. “There are antiaircraft batteries to be recovered out in the jungles, and ammunition. All the Federates have fled. The only Federales left alive are the wounded. We must find them, and execute them. Those were the comandante’s orders.”

“Si, capitdn,” Jesus said as a voice crackled on his radio. “It has been a good day, even though we lost all but one of our Russian helicopters.”

Raul gazed at smoke coming from parts of the jungle around the compound. “I never liked Klaus Hafher anyway, or any of the other Germans. I did not trust them.”

Jesus’s attention was drawn to the voice on the radio, a voice Raul recognized as belonging to Jim Strunk.

“What do you have to report?” Strunk asked.

“A victory,” Jesus replied. “The military compound at San Fernando has fallen. We captured two of the UH-1 helicopters and two dozen Sparrow rockets, along with many cases of machine-gun rounds and six armored personnel carriers.”

“I’ll inform the comandante,” Strunk said, his voice fading when static interfered with the radio signal. “Ground troops will be there before dark to help collect the booty. Eduardo will be with them to inspect the Hueys, to make certain they can fly.”

“Bueno,” Jesus said.

Raul watched the crew from the remaining Hind walk toward them with drawn pistols hanging at their sides. It had been a good fight, helping the armies of Perro Loco prepare for the coming attack on Mexico City.

A cry of pain came from the headquarters building in the center of the compound. He marched toward the sound with his pistol.

 

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Entering a darkened adobe room, he found a young Federale trying to reach a radio transmitter, crawling across the dirt floor leaving a trail of blood behind him.

“Idiota,” Raul snarled, aiming for the back of the Mexican soldier’s head.

Three loud explosions filled the room. The Federale was flipped over on his side, blood spurting from three wounds to his back.

“No radio messages to Mexico City,” Raul told the dying soldier. “They will find out what happened here soon enough, only by then it will be too late.”

The Federale groaned and lay still, gasping for each breath, reaching for a wound in his belly.

“What was that?” Jesus cried, rushing through the door with his pistol drawn.

“A fool,” Raul replied. “He was trying to make a call on the radio.”

“He is still alive,” Jesus observed.

“Not for long,” Raul promised, walking over to the soldier until he stood directly over him.

He aimed down at the Federale’s head, pumping two more shots into the man’s face.

The soldier’s foot twitched with death throes. Then he lay still.

Raul turned to Jesus. “Have the men put fuel in the UH-1 ‘s and the APCs. The comandante said a ground force will be here within a few hours. Everything must be ready to head northward toward Mexico City.”

 

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Colonel James King accompanied his pilots on a tour of the hangars at the Oak Ridge airfield. When they entered the main hangar, he lined the men up in front of him and sat on the edge of a table.

“President Osterman has asked that we proceed to do what we can to help her regain control of the government that was illegally stolen from her.” He stared at the men around him, trying to gauge their reaction to his next words.

“That means, gentlemen, we are going to have to attack the government’s headquarters in Indianapolis.”

He paused as the men looked at each other, some with frowns, others with what looked to be anticipation on their faces.

“I need to know right now if any of you are going to have trouble with fighting against troops who used to be your allies and friends.”

A murmur passed through the crowd of pilots as they spoke softly to one another. After a moment, a man with lieutenant’s bars on his collar stepped forward.

“Permission to speak freely, Colonel.”

“What’s your name, son?” King asked.

“Lieutenant Hawk, sir, Robert Hawk.”

“And you are?”

“I’m the squadron commander, sir.”

“Go ahead, Lieutenant.”

“Well, sir, we haven’t had a lot of time to discuss this

 

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among ourselves, but it seems to me that if the present government officials took over the command illegally, that is, without a vote of the people, that^s the same as a coup.”

King nodded.

“And if that is the case, sir, then we have an obligation to try our best to restore the Commander in Chief to her previous command. Isn’t that right?”

“That’s exactly right, son.” King stood up, thinking this was going better than he’d hoped. “In fact, you men are in the same position as some of your great-grandfathers were in back in the 1800’s, when brother often fought against brother to insure the perseverance of the Union, of the very United States as we know it today. Those men who are fighting for the present government have been lied to from the very beginning. They’ve been told Claire Osterman is dead, when in fact those very same leaders are the ones who tried to assassinate her in order to take over the country.”

The pilots glanced at one another and nodded, clearly believing everything King said.

“Now, you men may or may not agree with President Osterman’s decision to continue the war against the SUSA, but until she is removed from office in a legal election, she is still your Commander in Chief, and as such you took an oath to defend her policies with your very lives if need be.”

Several of the men stood straighter and said, “Yes, sir,” under their breaths.

“So, are we all in agreement on the necessity for action to restore her command to her?”

Now all the men spoke up in unison. “Yes, sir!”

“Good. Now, Lieutenant Hawk, why don’t you and your men show me what we have available to do the job?”

Hawk nodded and motioned for King to follow him to the area of the large hangar where a collection of helicopters were stored.

He stood in front of four dark green helicopters off to the side by themselves. “We have four McDonnell Douglas

 

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AH-64 Apaches, sir. The Apache is the most sophisticated helicopter ever built. It’s armed with six Hellfire missiles that can lock on to and destroy any known tank, and for softer targets it has 2.75-inch rockets and an extremely accurate 30mm Chain Gun. It is equipped with night-vision target-acquisition-and-designation systems to enable it to fly and fight in all weathers, day or night.”

King nodded. These were going to be extremely useful against Indianapolis. “And what else do we have?”

Hawk walked a bit farther into the hangar. “We’ve got about ten Bell AH-1 HueyCobras. They were developed from the old UH-1 and were one of the most feared weapons back in the Vietnam War. They’re kinda dated now, since they have no bad-weather or night-fighting capability, but it’s still a devastating weapon in the daytime. It’s got a 20mm Gatling gun beneath the nose, and can be fitted with either Target On Wire antiarmor missiles, cannon pods, or rocket pods beneath its stub wings.”

King nodded and glanced at the side at an array of ten smaller helicopters off to the side.

“What are those?” he said, pointing.

“Those are McDonnell Douglas OH-6 Defenders,” Hawk answered. They’re used mainly as light scout choppers, though they can be fitted with a Minigun for strafing troops and light personnel carriers. They’re too slow for major battles, but are great in the field when they’re aren’t any other choppers available.”

“Great,” King said. “Now how about airplanes?”

“They’re in the next hangar, sir,” Hawk said, leading the colonel through a side door and across two hundred yards of tarmac toward a much bigger hangar.

When they entered the hangar, King’s eyes lit up. “Jesus,” he said, staring at the array of aircraft in front of him.

Hawk stood next to several short jet-powered planes. “These are Vought A-7 Corsair Us,” he said, then grinned. “Better known as SLUFs.”

 

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“SLUFs?” King asked.

“Yeah, it stands for Short Little Ugly Fuckers,” Hawk said, laughing. “Originally designed as a carrier-borne light attack aircraft, it has a huge bomb load and is very effective against both ground troops and buildings.”

King nodded, his attention wandering to a group of planes farther inside the hangar. “What are those?” he asked.

“Those are the pride of the Air Force,” Hawk said, “probably the best close-support aircraft ever designed. The Fairchild A-10 Warthog. Heavily armored and very maneu-verable at low level, it carries both guided missiles and a 30mm cannon. It was the mainstay in the Gulf War of thirty years ago.” He shook his head. “Pilots loved it. Several of ‘em came back with half their wings shot off and tails missing, and they still brought the boys home alive.” He patted one on the fuselage. “This is my favorite of all.”

King smiled. “How about that?” he said, looking at a huge helicopter in the corner.

“That’s an old Boeing CH-47 Chinook. It’s too big to fit in the helicopter hangar so we stored it here. It can carry fifty troops and twelve tons of support equipment for ‘em and drop ‘em anywhere you want ‘em to go.”

King rubbed his hands together. “All right, gentlemen,” he said to the group of pilots that had been following them through the hangars. “Get some rest this afternoon, and we’ll meet at 2100 hours in the officers’ mess and formulate a battle plan for President Osterman.”

“When do you plan on staging the attack?” Hawk asked.

“Just as soon as we can arm these machines and get some troops up here for support,” King said.

“We’re also gonna have to have someplace nearer to Indianapolis to refuel the choppers,” Hawk said. “Most of ‘em only have a range of two hundred and fifty to three hundred miles.”

“How far is it to Indianapolis from Oak Ridge?”

“About a hundred and fifty miles, but they’re gonna need

 

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some fuel for maneuvers, especially if we face any resistance.”

King nodded. “I’ll coordinate with President Osterman and General Stevens. There are a couple of old National Guard bases not too far from the government’s headquarters.” He thought for a moment, then snapped his fingers. “I’ll get a couple of squads of Blackshirts up here and we can transport them to one of those fields the day before our attack. If they can take the field, the Chinook can carry enough avgas in drums to refuel the choppers on their way in.”

Hawk nodded. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

Three days later, the plan was set. Forty Blackshirt troops equipped with assault weapons were loaded into the CH-47 Chinook helicopter, along with 22,000 pounds of avgas in fifty-five-gallon drums and a handful of aircraft mechanics to see to the refueling when the time came. It’d been decided after consultation with Stevens and Osterman to have the Chinook make its assault at dusk on the morning before the attack, giving President Warner less than twelve hours to react in case word of the taking of the Guard base leaked out. The National Guard base they’d picked was at Terre Haute, Indiana, less than fifty miles from Indianapolis.

Stevens picked Saturday evening for the assault and dawn on Sunday for the final attack on the government’s base. He’d grinned when he told Claire of the plan, saying, “Remember Pearl Harbor? No one’s on their best on Sunday morning, especially when we’re negotiating a peace and not expecting an attack.”

The Blackshirts were under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Johnny Walker, an ex-Ranger in the Special Forces who was trained in assault techniques. His men were all in black, with black grease paint on their faces. Twenty of his

 

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men were armed with Browning sawed-off shotguns, the other half with M-16’s. His plan was simple. The pilot was to radio he was having engine trouble and would request permission to make an emergency landing at the Terre Haute field. Since it’d been practically abandoned when the government took over the base in Indianapolis, there would only be a skeleton crew stationed on the base, and most of those would probably be in town since it was Saturday night.

Pilot Tommy Windsong, a young Navajo warrant officer, keyed his mike and said, “Tower at Terre Haute … tower at Terre Haute. This is Chinook 7624 declaring an in-flight emergency. Mayday! Mayday!”

“Got ya on the scope, Chinook 7624. What’s the problem?”

“Engine oil pressure is falling rapidly and I’m losing my hydraulics. I need to put this can down fast!”

“Advise Chinook 7624, Indianapolis field is only fifty miles north. They have emergency equipment on standby. Advise you try there.”

Windsong put as much sarcasm in his voice as he could. “Listen, son. These whirlybirds have all the glide characteristics of a rock when the engine quits. I say again, I need to land now!”

There was a pause and a burst of static before the controller came back on. “Bring her in, Captain. Wind’s nor-noreast at ten miles, visibility is six miles. Happy landing, sir.”

Windsong smiled and made an O sign over his shoulder with his thumb and index finger to Colonel Walker, who was standing just behind his seat.

Walker turned to his men and pumped his fist up and down, signaling them to get ready. “Lock and load, gentlemen,” he said over the intercom into their headsets. “We’ve been invited to the dance.”

“Time to kick some ass!” an unidentified voice responded,

 

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making Walker smile. It was the kind of spirit he liked in his men just before battle. It meant they were loose and ready.

The Chinook settled with a gentle bump on the tarmac in the middle of the airfield, and before the rotors began to slow, Walker had his men out of the chopper and running toward the tower. Since the field wasn’t in current use, there were no emergency vehicles to shed light on the field and the men were practically invisible in the semigloom of dusk.

Private Sam Donally shielded his eyes against the reflection off the tower glass as he tried to see what was going on with the Chinook out on his field. He keyed his mike. “Chinook 7624, please advise present condition.”

“Hang on, tower, I’m checking my gauges as we speak,” Windsong replied, playing for time. “The engine temp is down but I’m still having trouble with the hydraulics.”

“Do you want me to radio Indianapolis for assistance?” Donally asked, suddenly remembering he hadn’t asked the pilot his mission or for his clearance codes in the excitement of the emergency.

“No,” Windsong replied, “I think it’s just a plugged hydraulic line. I may be able to fix it myself.”

“By the way, Chinook 7624,1 need to log the clearance code into my book. Would you give it to me?”

The door behind Donally burst open and a black-faced man stood there with a shotgun cradled in his arms. He pumped the lever with a loud metallic sound. “How’s that for your clearance code, sonny?”

Donally raised his hands, his mouth suddenly dry and his stomach feeling as if he’d been kicked in the balls. “It’ll do … it’ll do,” he croaked.

The man stepped aside and Walker walked into the tower and picked up the mike. “Mission accomplished, Chinook. Stand down.”

Then he pulled a .45 automatic out of his holster and stuck the barrel against Donally’s forehead. “We’re not going to have any trouble out of you, are we, son?”

 

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“No, sir!” Donally said.

“Good. Now tell me how many men you have on base and where they’re stationed.”

 

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Lieutenant Colonel Johnny Walker had his squadron of helicopters fly into the Terre Haute Air National Guard base from several different directions and all at extremely low altitudes. He’d received the week’s flight control codes from Private Sam Donally, who’d become very cooperative with a .45 aimed at his head, just in case the air traffic controllers at the Indianapolis base happened to be alert enough to notice the increased air activity on Saturday night.

Only two of the pilots had been questioned over the radio, and the controller had evidently accepted their stories about flying night maneuvers to get their air time up to standards to receive their flight pay.

Once all the pilots and Blackshirt Special Ops men were present, Walker had a pre-invasion conference in the officers’ wardroom. He stood at the front of the room with everyone else gathered in the folding chairs scattered around in a semicircle.

“Some of you pilots who’ve flown into Indianapolis might already know this, but bear with me. A lot of the Special Ops boys have never been to the main base.”

He perched on the edge of a desk with one hip and began his talk. “When President Osterman set up the new governmental headquarters, she chose Fort Benjamin Harrison on the outskirts of Indianapolis. At the time, the base boasted the largest indoor building in the country. Though only three stories aboveground, the main administration building has

 

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three underground bunkers that were built to withstand a nuclear blast. In the old days, back in the seventies and eighties, the base served as a repository for all the paper records of the Armed Services, as well as the center that processed all the payroll checks for the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps. The building was built to enormous standards, with halls wide enough for several jeeps to pass each other without crowding. It is my understanding that the new leaders of the country utilize the underground bunkers for most of their work and only lower-level administrative staff are housed aboveground.”

One of the pilots, a young man with barely enough fuzz on his face to be shaving, raised his hand. “Sir.”

Walker nodded. “Yes, go on.”

“I was wondering if you expect many civilian casualties in the upcoming attack.”

Walker smiled and shook his head. “No, not at all. That’s one of the reasons we planned the attack for the early morning hours on a Sunday. Virtually none of the civilians will be on duty, and those active duty personnel will be at their lowest manpower and hopefully at their lowest level of alertness.”

The young man nodded, evidently relieved he wouldn’t be expected to slaughter too many of his fellow Americans.

“Now,” Walker continued, “the topography of the land surrounding Fort Benjamin Harrison is mainly fiat, with only gently rolling hills and a few shallow river valleys in the area. That means we won’t have much cover on the way in, but it also means we can fly low and slow and not have to worry about flying into the side of a mountain.”

He stood up and motioned to Lieutenant Robert Hawk to come forward. “Now, I’m going to be in charge of the commandos in the Chinook, and we’ll be coming in on your tails after we’re told you’ve taken out all the AA batteries and as much of the ground resistance as you can. Since I’m not a pilot, I’m going to let Lieutenant Hawk, your squadron com-280

 

mander, set the battle plan for the air assault. Lieutenant Hawk.”

Robert Hawk stepped to a blackboard on the front wall, where he’d drawn a rough schematic of Fort Benjamin Harrison. “Since we’ve managed to get within fifty miles of the base and we’ll all have full tanks, we’re going to come in from the four points of the compass, with an Apache leading each of the four assault teams. They’ll be followed by two each of the HueyCobras and two each of the Defenders, which have been fitted with Miniguns and will come in last for mopping up and strafing of any ground troops that will be on the move. Since the Apaches are the only machines with night-flying capabilities, the others will follow in V-for-mation behind them, using the Apaches’ lights as guides to keep the correct altitudes and positions.”

“Sir,” one of the pilots said, “that leaves two each of the HueyCobras and Defenders left.”

Hawk nodded. “Yeah, those will accompany the Chinook in on its approach to protect the ground assault troops, just in case the fort manages to get any aircraft in the air.”

“What about our objectives?” the man asked.

“Primary is the ground-emplacement AA guns and any other defensive weapons or troops. Secondary is to destroy as much of the aboveground admin building as we can. Colonel King has asked that, within reason and safety, we avoid as much as we can damaging valuable aircraft on the ground, as we’re gonna need those later when we go up against the SUSA.”

Another of the pilots addressed Walker. “Sir, do you think forty men will be enough to hold the base after we take it?”

Walker nodded. “Yes, I do. Once we’ve taken control of the admin building and taken out the new leaders, we will issue a radio announcement that President Osterman has retaken her rightful position as head of the government and she will order all the troops to stand down. Without anyone to lead them against us, I don’t feel we’ll have too many

 

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problems. In addition, Colonel King will be arriving within hours of the assault with several hundred additional troops loyal to President Osterman, so there shouldn’t be any difficulty whatsoever.”

He stepped forward. “If there aren’t any additional questions, hit the sack, men. We’ll be getting up at 0500 and be ready for takeoff at 0600. I want to hit the base just before shift change at 0645, when the guards have been on duty for an entire shift and their alertness will be at its lowest ebb. Good night, and good hunting tomorrow.”

At 0630 on Sunday morning, Private Sloan Wilson shook his head and rubbed bleary eyes as he sat in the radar room in the control tower at Fort Benjamin Harrison. He’d been on duty for seven and a half hours, and hadn’t seen so much as a blip on the green radar screens lining the tower. To make matters worse, the coffee machine was on the fritz and he was having trouble staying awake.

He gave a last look at the screens, slipped out the door to the tower, and ran down the steps to the officers’ mess below. He knew the Officer of the Day wouldn’t mind if he borrowed a quick cup of coffee.

Sure enough, the lieutenant on duty was fast asleep, his head lying on folded arms on his desk, softly snoring.

“Jesus,” Wilson whispered to himself, shaking his head. “Must be nice to be an officer in this man’s army.” He stepped to the coffee urn and poured himself a cup. He took a quick sip and smiled. Hell, he thought, even their coffee is better.

With a quick glance over his shoulder, he eased out the door and climbed back up the stairs. He sat at his console and leaned back in his chair, enjoying the last cup of coffee before he was relieved and went to his bed for some much-needed shut-eye.

As he relaxed, a movement on the screens caught his attention. “Goddamn,” he muttered, spilling his coffee on his

 

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lap as he jerked forward. The screens were full of tiny white blips coming from all directions. “Shit!” he exclaimed, thumbing his microphone and almost yelling, “Unidentified aircraft, this is the tower speaking. I need your security codes at once!”

A thumping vibration and a blinding white light made him look up, just as a dark shape over a searchlight came straight at the tower.

Wilson had time to notice the winking lights as the Apache’s M230 30mm Chain Gun lit up the sky. Several hundred rounds of the 30mm shells shattered the glass of the tower and literally shredded Wilson’s body, throwing him backward over the chair and out the other window. He was dead before his body hit the ground thirty feet below.

Private Bobby Tupelow was dreaming of his girlfriend, who awaited him at his apartment, as he dozed at his antiaircraft battery on the outskirts of Fort Benjamin Harrison. A chattering staccato of gunfire drove all thoughts of romance from his mind and jerked him awake in the seat between the twin barrels of his guns.

Blinking his eyes and trying desperately to come fully awake, he jerked the loading lever, which would fill the firing chamber with the fifty-caliber slugs the gun fired. Before he could sight, much less pull the trigger, an OH-6 Defender helicopter swooped out of the morning sun, which was just peeking over the horizon, and let go with its 20 mm Minigun. The shells sheared one of Tupelow’s barrels off and ricocheted around his compartment, tearing through his body and setting his ammunition off in a blinding, shrieking explosion that could be heard for miles around the base.

Otis Warner was jolted out of his bed in the first basement level by an explosion that rocked the entire admin building as an Apache hovered two hundred yards to the west and fired first a Hellfire missile into the second-story, and then followed quickly with four 2.75-inch rockets into the side of the building. The walls of the second story disintegrated, col-283

 

lapsing half the third story and bringing the entire west side of the building down in tumbling rubble.

Warner looked back and forth, trying to come awake and think what he should do. Racing in his pajamas to the bedside phone, he picked it up to warn the troops of the attack, only to find no dial tone. The damn thing must’ve been knocked out by the explosion, he thought. He jerked his closet door open and began to pull on pants and shirt, not bothering to take the time to remove his pajamas. He stepped into shoes without socks and ran for the door to his bedroom. Jerking it open, he noticed plaster falling from the ceiling, but no visible cracks. Thank God, he whispered to no one, and began to run down the hall, not really knowing what he was going to do but feeling a desperate need to get out from under all the tons of concrete over his head.

General Joe Winter ran from his door, seconds behind Warner, holding a Browning shotgun in his arms. It’d long been rumored he slept with the gun, but actually it leaned against a wall next to his bed.

“Warner,” he yelled when he saw the President running down the hall.

Otis stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “What the hell’s going on, General?” he screamed, covering his ears as another explosion rocked the building.

“We’re under attack,” Winter shouted, almost adding “you idiot,” but clamping his lips shut just in time. “Come on, follow me to the emergency exit!”

Warner reversed himself and ran shakily down the hall after Winter, huffing and puffing as he tried to clear plaster dust from his eyes.

Winter stopped before a thick metal door and quickly punched numbers into a pad on the wall. The door clicked open onto a long tunnel, emergency lights along the ceiling casting a gloomy glow in the darkness.

“Let’s go, Mr. President. This will take us a quarter mile

 

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away from the building and come out in a safe area,” he said, adding under his breath an inaudible hope.p>

Winter pumped a shell into the chamber of the shotgun and took off down the hall at a lumbering run, slowing so as not to leave the President behind.

Soon, with the tunnel shaking and quivering under multiple explosions, they were at the end of the passageway. Again, Winter punched in a code on a keypad and a metal door slid open, revealing a flight of stairs leading upward.

Winter led the way, slowly opening yet another metal door at the top of the stairs. He eased the door open and peered out, his shotgun held at the ready. Finally, after a few moments, he gestured for Warner to follow him and he slipped out the door.

Warner found himself in a concrete bunkerlike room, about ten feet by ten feet, with a cement floor and no windows or furnishings.

Winter twisted a dead bolt on the door and again checked to make sure there was no danger. “Okay, it looks clear,” he said over his shoulder. “Follow me, and keep your head down and don’t stop running until I tell you.”

He disappeared out the doorway, and Warner took a deep breath, crossed himself, and ran after Winter.

Twenty yards away, across an open stretch of dried brown grass, was a building with a sign over the open door saying “Motor Pool.” Winter darted through the open doorway and ran straight for a HumVee parked in a line of jeeps and APCs.

He jerked the driver’s door open and motioned for Warner to get in the passenger side. Firing up the engine, he said, “Put your seat belt on, Mr. President. This may be a rough ride.”

He floored the accelerator and the HumVee shot out of the motor pool building, skidding through a turn as Winter headed for the east gate, the nearest one to their position.

Overhead, Malcolm Salsbury gave a twist on the throttle of his HueyCobra when he saw the HumVee throwing up a

 

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dust cloud as it sped toward the exit gate to the base. He tilted the nose down and flicked his eyes to his Heads Up Display as the vehicle became centered on his targeting scope. He keyed his microphone and said, “Squad leader, I’ve got a HumVee heading for the gate at speed. Can’t see occupants. Should I take it out?”

Lieutenant Hawk answered, “Is the vehicle making an aggressive move or firing on the choppers?”

“No,” Salsbury said with a laugh, “he’s haulin’ ass tryin’ to get out of the action.”

“Then let him, Malcolm. We’re not hear to kill people, just to retake the government.”

Malcolm flicked off his HUD. “Aye, sir,” he said into the mike. As he banked away from the car, he gave a mock salute. “”Vbu are one lucky fucker, whoever you are.”

The Apaches hovered over the admin building, pouring Hellfire missile after Hellfire missile into the structure until there was nothing left aboveground except a huge pile of smoking, burning rubble.

The HueyCobras used their 20mm Gatling guns on the AA emplacements until they were bent and twisted piles of scorched metal that looked like they were the work of some New Age sculptor, while the Defenders swooped and bent and dipped over the compound, strafing with their 20mm Miniguns any APCs that dared to try and bring troops into the battle.

All in all, since it was a Sunday morning and most of the troops not on guard duty were still in town sleeping off hangovers from Saturday night, there were surprisingly few casualties, with only a few scattered bodies littering the grounds.

Less than an hour into the fracas, Hawk radioed for Walker to bring his Special Ops Blackshirts onto the base. Moments later, the big Chinook could be seen lumbering in over the airfield, then hovering a few feet above the ground as it discharged its cargo of commandos like a dog shedding fleas.

Two hours later, it was all over. The base was secured and

 

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all personnel not dead were captured and confined in a couple of hangars with the Special Ops troops keeping guard.

Walker shook Hawk’s hand. “Good job, Lieutenant,” he said. “As soon as you refuel, I’ll need your men to fly a perimeter guard around the base at, say, ten miles, just in case someone gets the bright idea of trying to retake the base.”

Hawk grinned and saluted. “Aye, sir. I’ll rotate the men so they each have a little time to unwind and get some coffee and grub down.”

Walker nodded. He liked a man who thought of his troops’ welfare. It was the mark of a good officer.

After Hawk left, Walker turned to his executive officer, Lieutenant Bonner. “Cliff, have your men finished sweeping the underground bunkers?”

“Yes, sir. We found several secretaries, a couple of minor functionaries, and some … women.”

“Wives?” Walker asked.

Bonner grinned and waggled his hand back and forth. “Maybe, or maybe just good friends.”

Walker nodded. “Any sign of General Winter or Otis Warner?”

Bonner shook his head. “No, sir.”

“Shit! President Osterman is going to be really pissed!”

Bonner shrugged. “He could be buried under all that wreckage of the aboveground structure,” he said, though his voice showed he didn’t really believe it.

Walker frowned. “No, I’m not that lucky. Oh, well, I might as well call Colonel King and let him know the bad news. Maybe he’ll volunteer to pass the message along to Osterman.”

Bonner laughed. “You ever know a senior officer to stick his neck out like that?”

Walker returned the grin. “Hell, no. How do you think they got to be senior officers?”

 

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The Boeing/Bell CV-22 Osprey slowed in the predawn hours after passing over Mexico City on the way toward the forward elements of General Dominguez’s and General Pena’s troops. The CV-22 was a medium lift, multimission, vertical/short-takeoff-and-landing (VSTOL), tilt-rotor aircraft developed by Boeing and Bell Helicopter Textron to be used for long-range Special Operations missions, especially for combat assault and assault support.

Since it had the attributes of both a transport airplane and a helicopter, it was ideal for placing Buddy Raines and his Special Ops Brigade team deep into Mexican territory.

As the mission-ready light over the cargo compartment door changed from red to green, Buddy leaned over and said to Harley Reno, “I’ll take my group out here, in front of the advancing forces, and then have the pilot leapfrog over them and let your team out to their rear. That way we’ll have ‘em pincered between us.”

Harley looked down the cargo compartment, which was six feet in height, five feet, eleven inches in width, and twenty-four feet, four inches in length. “Good. I’ll be glad to get out of this bird, it reminds me too much of a coffin.”

Buddy stuck his hand out. “Good hunting, podna.”

“”You, too, pal,” Reno answered, shaking his hand. “I’ll have Corrie keep in close touch with your radio operator so we can coordinate our strikes.”

Buddy stuck his thumb up and turned to his men. “Mount

 

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up, gentlemen,” he said as the rotors on the wing tilted and the big Osprey settled to the ground like a helicopter, hovering two feet off the caliche dirt of the Mexican desert.

Buddy opened the door and jumped to the ground, followed by his Special Ops team. As soon as the last man stepped out, Harley leaned over and pulled the door shut.

He signaled Coop, who banged on the wall behind the pilot to signal him they were ready for takeoff. As the Osprey rose in the air, then began to move forward as the rotors tilted again on the wings, Coop shook his head. “Damn, this thing can’t seem to make up its mind whether it’s a helicopter or an airplane.”

Anna scooted over on her bench to make room for Harley to sit next to her, causing both Jersey and Coop to look at each other and smile. Anna’s infatuation with the big redhead was becoming more obvious every day.

Soon, the Osprey again settled to the earth and Harley, Hammer, Anna, Corrie, Jersey, and Coop piled out and immediately spread out forming a defensive perimeter as the plane took off again.

Coop noticed Harley had grabbed a four-foot-long box painted Army green and had it under his arm. “What ya got in the box, Harley?” he asked as they squatted in the field, looking outward for any signs of hostiles.

Harley grinned. “An M-60 machine gun fixed with a leather strap.”

Coop raised his eyebrows. “You mean like Rambo used in that old movie First Blood? “

Harley nodded. “Yep. Never know when a little firepower might come in handy.”

“A little firepower?” Jersey said from next to Coop. “You can stop a tank with that thing.”

Harley just nodded. “Yep.”

Hammer stood up after seeing they were unobserved. “Let’s go, people. Time to get under cover until dawn, when we can see to reconnoiter the area.”

 

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Hammer led them at a dogtrot until they found shelter under a grove of mesquite trees near a small stream that was little more than a trickle.

“Break out your MREs. No tellin’ when we’ll get to eat again,” he said.

Anna took out a pouch of navy beans and ham hocks with corn and twisted the pack so the self-contained chemical reaction would heat the bag. Then she sat next to Harley, with her back against the bole of a tree.

“Harley,” she said.

“Yes, Anna.”

“Tell me about yourself. Are you of Swedish or Norwegian descent?”

He chuckled quietly as he ripped open a packet that said Swiss steak and mashed potatoes. “Neither. My ancestors were all Indians.”

Anna looked at him like he was teasing her. “With red hair and blue eyes?”

He nodded. “There’s a tribe of Indians in northwest Mexico called the Tarahumarra. They live over near Torrleon on the edge of the desert. All the men and women have red hair and green eyes, and the men are almost all over six feet in height.”

“How did they get those characteristics?” she asked.

He shrugged. “No one knows for sure, but it’s said that the Tarahumarra are direct descendants of the Nordic people brought over by Eric the Red and his fellow explorers.”

“But, Harley, your eyes are blue.”

He stared at her for a moment. “I’m glad you noticed, Anna.”

Her face blushed a fiery red as he continued. “That’s probably because I also have some Karankawa in me.”

“Karankawa?”

“Yeah. The Karankawa lived along the Texas coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and are best known for being cannibals.”

“Huh?”

 

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He nodded. “But that’s really not fair. They didn’t eat people for fun, only the hearts and brains of enemies they’d captured, in order to get their wisdom and strength. Hell, almost all of the Native American tribes did the same thing.”

“But how did they mix with your Tarahumarra?”

“Again, no one knows, but the best guess is Spanish slave traders used to cruise the coast of Texas and capture the Karankawa to make slaves of them. Naturally, they’d be taken back to Mexico, where most of the Spanish gold and silver mines were. Those that escaped, joined and later bred with the Tarahumarra.”

“Do you ever eat your enemies, Harley?” she asked, smiling gently at him.

He stared deep into her eyes. “No, Anna, only my closest friends.”

She dropped her eyes to her navy beans, her face again flaming red.

Parts of the old Pan American Highway ditches were overgrown with vines, and in places the asphalt was pockmarked by craters from RPGs made years before, when the big war raged across most of the world. Since then, there had been only sparse traffic on the long, badly damaged highway. The Mexican people, like most of those of the Third World, had suffered far more from the destruction of the old way of life than had the more developed nations. With the new struggle for survival and the destruction of much of the wealthier nations’ infrastructure, there had been precious little money for foreign aid.

Buddy Raines led a squad of his Special Ops Brigade through the jungles of the Mexican state of Oaxaca, flanking the highway that once linked North America with the Panama Canal and Central America. His troops carried silenced Beretta pistols and the so-called Mini-Uzi 9x19mm machine guns with forty-round magazines.

 

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They were placing “Bouncing Betty” land mines wherever an unsuspecting group of Comandante Perro Loco’s ground forces was expected to march toward Mexico City. The Bouncing Betty came up three feet in the air before it exploded, sending shrapnel into anything and everything within a forty-foot area, one of the deadliest mines ever developed for warfare.

Perro Loco’s troops were marching on Mexico City under the command of Generals Juan Dominguez and Jaime Pena.

Presidente Martinez of Mexico had promised Ben Raines that no one would molest his SUSA Rebels, so long as they kept it a limited conflict. General Dominguez’s troops were said to be moving north with tanks, APCs, and several thousand of Perro Loco’s infantrymen from both Belize and Nicaragua and Honduras to try to take the Mexican capital. The untended Pan American Highway was the only route through primitive jungle states like Chiapas, Oaxaca, Guerrero, and Michoacan to Mexico City from the south. There were no other roads suitable for heavy equipment.

Buddy Raines knew the Belizian rebels had to use the virtually abandoned highway to get their tanks and heavy artillery northward to the Mexican capital. He was preparing a welcome for them and the troops that would be walking alongside them.

Buddy led his handpicked force of a dozen trusted specialists along the dark, mosquito-infested jungle trails running beside the highway. No motorized traffic moved past them in any direction. The gasoline refineries across southern Mexico had been knocked out during the war, and fuel was at a premium in this part of the hemisphere.

Sergeant Chuck Flood, dressed in camouflage with his face blackened like the others, came over to Buddy, his Uzi hanging from his shoulder on a thin leather strap.

“We’ve got ‘em out, sir. Not using any patterns, like you told us. They’ll have to sniff them out one at a time to find all of them. Maybe as much as half the column will be in

 

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our trap before they realize what’s happening to them. When they try to get off the road, they’ll hit our Bouncing Bettys in most of the ditches.”

“Recon says the lead battalion is only a few miles south of us. Captain Storm says they should be crossing the first mines in an hour, maybe less.”

Sergeant Flood nodded.

A woman wearing an infantryman’s cap came running up to Buddy as he was talking to Sergeant Flood.

“They’re coming,” Corporal Crisi Casper said, out of breath as she gave her report. “Two miles. Moving slowly, but I don’t think they suspect anything.”

“Have they got dogs out front?” Buddy asked.

“No. No dogs.”

Flood grinned. “Then they should hit the land mines with the APCs and tanks without any warning.” He glanced up at the sky. “I sure as hell wish we had some air support for this operation.”

“That would give us away,” Buddy said. “Better to let them wander into the middle of our minefields without suspecting anything.”

“They don’t suspect anything,” Crisi said. “They act like this is a parade of some kind. Some officer is riding out in front in a jeep mounted with a fifty-caliber popgun. He acts like they’re headed for Disneyland. He was smiling when I saw him.”

Buddy looked south. “Tell Captain Storm to get everyone off the roadway. We’ve laid better than five hundred land mines on this stretch, including the old Claymores. We’ll pull back into the jungle and see how many of Perro Loco’s soldiers and tanks get blown to bits in the next couple of hours. It’s good to know they don’t have scent dogs to guide them through. The trap is set now.”

“I’ll inform Captain Storm,” Sergeant Flood said, taking off at a jog.

 

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“What do you want the rest of us to do?” Corporal Casper asked.

“Get back off the road, a hundred yards or more. Scatter out and wait.”

“Wait for what, sir?”

“When things start blowing up along this highway, we’ll call for an Osprey and get the hell out of here. It’ll take Perro Loco’s soldiers a couple of days to clear a way through this jungle for their heavy stuff to get around the mines we’ve laid along this road.”

“These Central American rebels may call in their own air support, sir.”

“Suits me just fine,” Buddy said.

“It suits you?”

“It sure as hell does. We’ll see how well Comandante Perro Loco’s air force does in the skies … We’ve got two rocket launchers.”

A thundering explosion came from a bend in the roadway and pieces of heavy iron flew into the air, along with a thick column of smoke.

“Bingo,” Buddy whispered to Captain Storm from their hiding place in the jungle. “Something… a tank or an APC, just hit a mine and their fuel tank exploded.”

A huge ball of swirling flame rose above the canopy of the rain forest.

“They’re right in the middle of the minefield we set for ‘em,” Storm said.

Another explosion prevented Buddy from agreeing with the captain out loud.

“Damn,” Corporal Casper said when another ball of fire boiled into the sky.

“That had to be another fuel tank,” Buddy said as he put his fieldglasses on the bend in the Pan American Highway. “A Betty doesn’t make that much noise.”

 

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“A Claymore don’t either,” Storm remarked. “We’ve got ‘em right where we want ‘em now.”

“Spread out,” Buddy said, adjusting the focus knob on his binoculars. “Their foot soldiers will be coming from all directions in a minute or two.”

“We can’t hold off so many,” Storm said.

“I know,” Buddy replied. “I’m going to radio for the Os-prey to pick us up. We’ve done all we can do with very limited resources.”

Gunshots rang out from the south.

“Who are they shooting at?” Crisi wondered.

“Shadows,” Buddy told her. “When things start happening fast on a battlefield, you see ghosts.”

A third explosion shook the ground underneath Buddy, Corporal Casper, and Captain Storm.

Buddy grunted, still unable to see anyone moving through his field glasses. “Must have been a munitions truck. Pretty dumb of General Dominguez to put a truck full of explosives near the front of an advancing column.”

“They don’t have a West Point in Mexico,” Storm said as the sound of the explosion faded.

“Spread out,” Buddy said again.

“I’ll call in the Osprey. Before long these trees are gonna be crawling with Perro Loco’s rebel soldiers.”

“Here they come now,” Crisi said, pointing south.

Buddy could see shadows moving through the jungle southeast of the highway.

“We’ll take out as many as we can,” Captain Storm said, as he pulled back the loading lever on his Uzi.

Buddy nodded. “Give the Osprey fifteen minutes. It’s coming from Tampico. Move north along the road and we’ll meet at the bridge.”

Captain Storm slipped off into the jungle. Corporal Casper moved behind a tangle of vines, walking east.

Two more explosions in rapid succession told Buddy that a land mine had destroyed two vehicles.

 

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“Welcome to southern Mexico, General Dominguez,” he said under his breath, returning the field glasses to his face as he searched the jungle.

Private Julio Villalobos lay in the ditch beside the Pan American Highway with his M-16 resting on his chest. He was having trouble breathing.

Julio’s friend, Gulliermo Costas, came crawling toward him with both legs blown off below his knees.

“What… happened, Julio?”

“Land mines. Someone put mines along this road. They knew we were coming.”

“I am dying, Julio. I have no feet.”

Julio wasn’t all that sure of his own injuries. “I cannot get any air,” he said. “Something went down in my lungs when the tank blew up.”

“Por favor, please give this watch to my sister, Julio. It belonged to my father.”

“I am not sure I can stand up, compadre.”

“But you must give it to her. It is all I have. Take the twenty pesos from my pocket and give it to her also. She has four children.”

An earsplitting blast shook the jungle beyond the ditch where Julio lay. “I cannot move, compadre. Put the watch and the money in my pocket.”

A chunk of iron track from an old Sherman tank came tumbling into the ditch beside Julie and Gulliermo, landing with a thud a few yards away.

“What is happening?” Julio gasped.

“We are being attacked,” Costas groaned. “I am dying because I have no feet.”

The chatter of machine-gun fire came from the north, farther up the road.

“Please give the watch and the money to my sister,” Costas pleaded.

 

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“I am not sure I can stand up. I do not know what is wrong with me.”

Costas crawled over to him. He looked down at Julio’s lower body. “Dios,” he gasped.

“What is it?” Julio wondered, feeling nothing other than a strange floating sensation.

“Madre de Dios. Where are your legs, Julio?”

“My legs?”

“They are not here … There is only blood.”

Julio tried to wiggle his toes. “I cannot feel anything,” he said.

Three explosions in a row echoed down the line of tanks and trucks stopped along the highway.

“Your legs!” Costas cried. “Julio! You have no legs and I have no feet!”

Julio closed his eyes, thinking of their small village in the mountains in Honduras where his wife and children waited for the money promised by Comandante Perro Loco. “I must have legs,” he said, unable to raise his head to see for himself. “No one can live without legs.”

Costas started to vomit, gagging up the meager contents of his stomach.

Julio began to dream of a ripe banana, along with a piece of breadfruit. He closed his eyes and dreamed of better days until the dream became lost in a fog.