by Ted Bell
“I think you can handle this one alone, Skipper,” Boomer said to Stoke. He and the two commandos moved farther down the hall where the firing was heaviest. Stokely moved into the room, sweeping his HK back and forth until he reached the terrified young guard.
“What the hell wrong with you, boy?” Stoke said, sending the guard’s AK-47 rattling across the floor with a kick of his boot. “Big old black man scare you so much you ain’t even going to put up a fight?”
“I—I have orders to execute him, señor,” the guard said in trembling but perfect English. “If there is any rescue attempt. But I do not want to do it. They say they kill me if I don’t do it!”
“Execute who?” Stoke asked, looking around the room.
“Him,” the guard said, pointing at the bed.
At first, Stoke thought the bed was empty.
Then he saw some movement under the sheets and saw whoever it was had pulled the sheets up over his head. Stoke walked over and ripped the sheets off. It was just an old guy wearing some ugly-ass pajamas.
“Get out the damn bed, my brother, you free at last,” Stoke said, prodding him gently with the muzzle of his HK.
“Fuck you,” the old guy said.
“Fuck me? I come and rescue your damn ass and all you got to say—hey, hold the phone, I know you! You goddamn Fidel, ain’t you? Hell, you Fidel Castro! Man, you world famous!”
“Go away,” the old guy said. “Leave me to die in peace.”
“Peace? You call this peace? Hand grenades going off, submachine guns firing all over the place? You deaf or something? Now get out that bed.”
“Where is my son?” Fidel said. “They promised he would not be harmed. No one will tell me.”
“Where’s his son, asshole?” Stoke asked the guard.
“They took him last night. To Havana.”
“Alive?” Castro asked, staring at the guard.
“Sí, Comandante. He was alive when they put him in the truck. I swear it.”
“Hey, Comandante, get out the bed and put these damn pants on,” Stoke said, throwing him a pair he’d found draped over a chair.
“Why?” Castro said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Why? Look at you! A badass revolutionary like you wearin’ them funky pajamas? Why is ’cause I’m gonna save your sorry ass whether you like it or not, that’s why. I leave you lyin’ here like this, they just gonna shoot you.”
“So?”
“So, you a Communist, ain’t you? Man, you on the endangered species list! You right at the top! I ain’t goin’ to let a bunch of dipshit drug dealers murder an old coot like you in cold blood. I’m a New York City policeman! Now, get your damn pants on and let’s get out of here!”
Castro climbed out of bed muttering and started pulling the trousers on.
“You, too, dickhead,” he said to the guard.
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. You see anybody else in here?”
“No, señor, but—”
“Shut the fuck up, okay? Now both of you listen up. Pablo, you go out first, then the living legend, and then me. Pablo, you stay tight, right in front of the comandante, got that? Shield his ass. You don’t do it, you try and run, and I’m going to blow your ass off anyway. Okay, Pablo? Comandante? Let’s go!”
There were three Cuban soldiers just emerging from the haze at the top of the stairwell when they came out of the door. Pablo froze and then Stokely shoved Castro to the floor, told Pablo to hit the deck, and unleashed his MP-5. Before the tangos could register what was happening they had crumpled to the floor, shredded with lead.
“HydraShok loads,” he informed Fidel and Pablo. “Some serious shit, ain’t they? Come on, Comandante, get your ass up. We gettin’ out of here!”
The firing at the other end of the building had diminished considerably. Stoke was just stepping over the dead soldiers heaped at the top of the steps when he heard Fitz on the radio tell Boomer they had the hostage and were clearing out of the building.
Stoke didn’t see anything moving out front when the three of them stepped outside into the courtyard. Clouds still blanketed the stars, but he could sense it was getting lighter out. The closest vehicle was a beat-up old Jeep he’d checked on the way in. Keys were in the ignition.
“Get in that damn Jeep and drive, Pablo,” he told the guard, shoving him toward the driver’s side. He held Castro’s arm, escorted him around to the Jeep’s other side, and helped him get in. Then he handed the old man his 9mm pistol. Castro looked down at the weapon in his lap with an expression of mild surprise.
“Now listen up, Comandante, I don’t know what’s going on down here in this whacked-out fucking country of yours. But I do know there’s an eight-foot hole in that fence right over there. About five hundred yards past it is a jungle road looks like it might lead somewhere.”
“Sí! I know it,” the guard said. “It leads to my village of Santa Marta!”
“Good,” Stoke said. “Excellent. Pablo, this old fella is looking shaky. You take him on home to your momma and get some hot chicken soup in him, okay? Perk his ass right up. You got that? Now you two get your sorry damn asses out of here before the real shooting war starts!”
He looked at Castro and leaned in close to him.
“I’m goin’ to tell you something now, Comandante, all right? Just between you and me, know what I’m sayin’, my brother? The truth?”
Castro nodded, just sitting there, looking up at him like what the fuck.
“This Communism thing?” Stoke said, looking at him, dead serious.
“Yes?”
“It sucks. Try something else.”
The Jeep roared off, and Stoke climbed up into the big half-ton truck parked a few yards away. No keys. He’d have to hot-wire it. Just as he bent to do it, the windshield of the truck exploded, showering him with a thousand fragments. He lifted his head and saw more green fatigues than he could count coming at a run down the road from the barracks area.
Shit.
The wires sparked, and the truck roared to life. He jammed it into reverse and backed up all the way to the doorway Alpha squad had entered. By the time he got there, he saw Hawke and Fitz emerge with Vicky supported between them. She looked okay. Hollow-eyed, but okay. Shit, she was breathing, wasn’t she?
“Everybody in the back of the truck!” Stoke shouted, leaping from the vehicle. “We got the whole Cuban Army coming down the road!”
Hawke lowered the tailgate and helped Vicky climb inside, giving her a quick hug. “God only knows how you got here, Vicky,” he said. “But I am going to get you out.”
“What…took you so long…Alex?” Vicky whispered, trying to smile.
Fitz’s commandos, some of them obviously wounded, started streaming through the door. Fitz did a head count as he helped them up into the back of the truck. He obviously wasn’t going anywhere until every one of his men had walked or been carried through that doorway.
“Okay, Stoke,” he said. “All accounted for. Hit the beach! Hawke and I will ride on the running boards and give you cover fire. Froggy, you guys grab a few RPGs and cover us out our rear. Go!”
Enemy rounds were sizzling all around them, a few starting to rip into the canvas top of the half-tonner when Stoke took off. Hawke, on the driver’s side, and Fitz, on the passenger side, each held on to the big rearview mirrors with one hand and fired their HKs at the rapidly advancing troops with the other. The Frogman and two guys in the back of the truck were hanging out over the tailgate firing rocket-propelled grenades at the first wave of green fatigues coming through the fence.
The RPGs slowed the wave of hostile troops down some but it looked like hundreds of them were coming. It was going to be close, Stoke thought, as he fishtailed the big truck in an effort to get the hell out of there.
He held up his arm to look at his watch. He was surprised to see it soaked with blood. A piece of windshield must have caused a deep gash in his forearm. His bloody watch told him they were forty m
inutes into the mission. They’d been in the building seventeen minutes. If they were going to reach the inflatables and make the appointed offshore rendezvous with Nighthawke before the whole Cuban Navy showed up, he had to get moving.
The banging of gunfire and the whoosh of RPGs behind him was now constant. It occurred to him that, except for his momma, just about every single person on earth he cared about was riding in this truck. Whatever it takes, he said to himself.
He told Hawke and Fitz to hold on and mashed the accelerator. The most direct route would take them through the heart of the tango compound, just west of the big finca that jutted out into the sea.
That’s when he saw the huge Soviet helicopter gunship come up over the trees. Soviet choppers made everybody else’s choppers look candyass. Big old black bulbous things with glass bubbles and turrets and shit. Scary-looking. Its rotor wash was kicking up a furious sand-storm.
Still, Stoke saw the bug-eyed monster’s twin six-barreled miniguns open up and start winking at him. Then he saw it fire two missiles.
“Christ, Stoke! Dodge those things!” Hawke said, firing his HK at the oncoming chopper. Stoke swerved violently right to avoid the incoming missiles and it was all Hawke and Fitz could do just to hang on.
The two missiles exploded about thirty yards to the left of the truck, causing a massive crater. The concussion alone lifted the truck up onto two wheels. It teetered, then finally banged back down again and Stoke got it moving and swerving right. This was bad. Even Stoke knew nine-millimeter rounds were literally useless against armored Soviet helicopters.
“We can’t take this thing out with the HKs!” Hawke said. “We need RPG launchers up here now!” He shouted in Stoke’s window as the chopper roared overhead. “Have someone pass them up!”
Stoke started zigzagging in earnest now, hearing the whine of the big chopper’s jet turbines as it careened around for another pass.
“No! Belay that order!” Fitz shouted in Stoke’s other window. “We’ll never get a clean RPG shot hanging out here one-handed! Stoke, can you execute a one-eighty in this thing?”
“Hang a U-ey?” Stoke said, swerving to avoid a looming palm tree. “I think I can manage that!”
“Do it!” Fitz screamed. “And come to a dead stop. I want to give Froggy a shot out the back at this fucking chopper. He’s the only one of us with the slightest chance to bring it down!”
“Hold on back there, folks!” Stoke shouted over his shoulder. “We’re going to flip this half-ton heap around backasswards!”
Stoke yanked down hard left on the wheel, locking it, and sent the big truck into a hard drift through 180 degrees. When it had completely reversed directions, he yanked up on the emergency brake. The truck skidded to a stop, throwing up a huge spray of sand.
He was amazed to see that during this maneuver, Fitz had somehow climbed through the window of the cab and was now scrambling over the bench seat into the rear of the truck. He was yelling at Froggy and the two other RPG guys to get ready.
The monster chopper had completed carving its turn and was skimming back over the treetops. It was probably surprising to the pilots to find themselves now approaching from the rear. But the ticking of bullets puncturing the hood and fenders wasn’t exactly soothing to those inside.
“Froggy, you remember where the sweet spot is on these birds?” Fitz was shouting at the back of the truck. “It’s an Mi-38 Heckle!”
“Mais certainement, ze Heckle’s thorax,” Froggy said, getting to his feet. “Right below his gullet.” He unhooked the tailgate, let it fall, and stood up on it, spreading his stance and lining up the RPG tube, right down the throat of the big black bird. He shifted his feet for better balance. The tailgate was sticky with the blood of his wounded comrades.
“Oh, shit! Don’t let him get too close, Froggy!” Fitz shouted, watching the chopper roar toward them at treetop level. Soviet choppers were designed to get hammered and not even change course. There was one small vulnerable spot, though, and Froggy had his eye on it.
“Settle…settle,” Froggy said, the tube on his shoulder, ignoring Fitz and all the lead flying toward him, steady as a rock. He was actually calm at such moments. He knew he was probably going to get shot, and since there wasn’t a fucking thing he could do about it, he always focused on whatever weapon was in his hand at the moment.
The RPG had a maximum range of 1,000 feet or so. It was designed solely for land warfare. Firing one upwards was enormously dangerous, even suicidal as a few Sammies had learned in Somalia, shooting at U.S. choppers. Froggy, who had been there, knew he was forced to bide his time. The miniguns on the bird were spitting lead, kicking up sand all around the back of the truck. Closing—closing—now!
WHOOOOSH!
The grenade shot out toward the ugly black helicopter, leaving a white trail of smoke behind it. The chopper tried desperately to pull up but it was too late.
There was a small explosion first, just aft of the nose under its chin bubble where its controls were. The chopper veered sharply left. It went into a rapidly accelerating spin. Fitz and Froggy watched, counting the seconds, praying the hit was on target.
There was an enormous flashbang of light and sound as the helicopter became a huge fireball skidding along the tops of the trees. It tilted violently left, its main rotors snapped and went flying, and then there was no trace of it other than the thick black smoke and licks of fire rising from the jungle.
A cheer erupted in the back of the truck, and then they all held on as Stoke jammed the truck into first gear and hauled ass the hell out of there, headed for the beach.
“Let’s go surfin’ now, everybody’s learnin’ how…” Stoke sang at the top of his lungs. He could see glimpses of the sea now through the palms. There was still sporadic fire coming from all sides, but Hawke and Fitz and the boys in the back of the bus seemed to be doing a good job of suppressing it.
Stoke was driving with one hand now, firing his .45 out the windshield and the driver’s side window. He didn’t have any targets but he liked the general idea of fire coming from all sides of the truck.
Suddenly the truck rocked left. Something had slammed into the vehicle hard on the right. He waited for an explosion—nothing. He looked at the right side door. An unexploded Russian RPG had poked its ugly-ass nose right through his goddamn steel door and stopped! The things were two feet long and there was at least a foot inside sitting there pointed at him!
Shit. He was more surprised than afraid. You talk about lucky. Can’t get no more lucky than a dud RPG coupla feet from your ass. Can’t hang around here too much longer, less luck be running out.
“Stoke!” he heard Hawke say in his headphones.
“Talk to me, brother.”
“The big house coming up on your left, el finca grande. You and I are hopping off there. Make for the trees and drop us off!”
Stoke leaned out the window and shouted at Hawke, who was still firing his HK at anything that moved.
“Fuck you talking about, boss?”
“Pull inside that stand of trees, Stoke,” Hawke said, leaning in the window, grinning his ass off. “You and I have some unfinished business. It might take a while. Fitz and Boomer will get Vicky to the IBS and then out to Nighthawke. Then send an IBS back for us. If we’re not at the rendezvous in half an hour, tell him to go without us.”
Stoke slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop inside a grove thick with palms.
“I knew you’d understand,” Hawke said, smiling.
Hawke then leapt to the ground and ran around to the rear of the truck. He quickly climbed up inside, found Vicky, and whispered something into her ear. She reached up and wrapped both arms around him and he kissed the top of her head and turned away.
“She all right?” Fitz said, climbing down off the tailgate with Hawke.
“She will be,” Hawke said. “I’m sure you fellows will make sure of that.” He looked up at the commandos jammed into the back of the truck and saluted them
.
“Well done,” Hawke said, looking each man in the eye. “Remarkable job. Thank you, each one of you, for what you did.” There was silence inside the truck, and Hawke had turned away, when one of the men coughed.
“We know where you and Stokely are going, sir,” Cosmo said. “A couple of us would like to come with you.”
“Make it all of us, mon ami!” Hawke heard Froggy say.
“Thanks, Froggy,” Hawke said, “but we might have a better chance if it’s just the two of us. Besides, I need all of you brave gents to protect the lovely lady. Ready, Stoke?”
“Let’s move out, boss,” Stoke said, and he and Hawke disappeared into the darkness.
There was still sporadic shooting behind them. The fire, though sparse, was getting closer. Hawke heard Fitz shout something obscene as he climbed behind the wheel and the old truck shot forward, spraying sand from the rear wheels, headed for the beach.
Hawke wasn’t overly worried. If anyone could get Vicky safely aboard the inflatable and out to the designated rendezvous with Nighthawke, it was FitzHugh McCoy, Charlie Rainwater, and the incredible band of warriors inside that truck.
55
Five minutes later, Alex and Stoke were a hundred yards from the main finca, hunkered down, well hidden in the scrub palm at the fringe of the jungle.
The place was immense.
Wings extended in all directions, mostly three stories high, some with towers and turrets at least six or seven stories. Towers and parapets and hundreds of yellow lights, oblongs and hexagons, a wonder of golden windows. All was pale stucco, and the many rooftops and chimneys were finished with bright blue ceramic tiles.
Both men scanned the width and breadth of the finca compound with their night-vision goggles. There was an eight-foot stone wall, topped with concertina wire, surrounding the entire compound. The main portion of the house lay some three hundred yards inside the wall. Just opposite them was a massive iron gate flanked by two guardhouses with dim blue lights burning inside.