The Peacekeepers. Books 4 - 6.

by Ricky Sides

  “Lieutenant, you’d better take a look at this,” one of his men said from the corner of the room.

  Walking over to the corner Lieutenant Wilcox froze at the nightmarish sight that greeted his eyes. A little boy lay there on a couch. The boy was dead. The lieutenant estimated that the child was five years old. He had been stripped naked. A rope cord garrote was still tied around his neck. The body showed evidence of the worst manner of sexual abuse. Glaring at the captive behind the desk the lieutenant felt a rage well up inside of him. “You filthy animal!” he said and the man cowered in fear at the feral rage he saw in the eyes of the men surrounding him.

  Chapter 18

  Sergeant Marino personally led his men into what seemed to be the main barracks of the enemy. The moment that he entered the building, a shot fired to his right and he felt something like a hard punch to his right side. One to the men behind him fired three rounds in rapid succession at the corner where the attacker had been waiting to ambush the first man to enter. One of Ramon’s men grabbed him and pulled him back outside and into cover. Ramon heard the man yell frantically for a medic and felt hands tugging at his armor. Dazed, he didn’t really understand what all of the fuss was about. He heard the medic say, “Hold him still.” and then Ramon felt a brief pain in his side. “You are one lucky man my friend,” the medic said to Ramon.

  Coming out of his momentary shock Ramon asked, “What happened?” He felt his shirt being raised, and a piece of cloth touched his side. He winced briefly.

  The medic said, “Sorry, Sergeant. The bullet penetrated your side plate and partially entered your side, but it didn’t fully penetrate the armor. I think you have a broken rib though. I’ll have you on your feet in a moment and we can get you to a safe place.”

  “Just patch me up, Doc. I have a battle to finish,” Ramon stated fiercely.

  “Sergeant, I think…,” the medic began.

  “Just do it, Doc. Those are my men fighting and I will not let such a wound stop me from fighting with them. I recruited them, Doc!” Ramon said and grabbed the front of the man’s uniform shirt and raised his head to look him in the eyes.

  “I know, Ramon,” the medic replied softly and hastily completed the bandaging. When the medic finished working on him, he assisted Ramon to his feet and said, “Good luck, Sergeant.”

  “Thank you, and thank you for patching me up,” the sergeant replied and quickly moved back inside the building accompanied by the medic and the man who’d pulled him back outside the building.

  The main group of men was slowly advancing toward the last of the rooms in the back section of the structure. They had found and killed several holdouts, but they all had the feeling that somewhere ahead of them, another sizeable group of the enemy lay in wait. Sergeant Marino found them waiting at a closed steel door not unlike the one that the strike team was encountering in the command building at that very moment.

  Ramon advanced toward the door in a crouch. Pausing near the door, he placed his ear gently against the wall to the right of the entry and motioned for the men near him to be quiet. Listening intently, he heard nothing. Moving with stealth, he made his way soundlessly to the left side of the door. He motioned for his men to lie down on the floor and prepare to fire into the doorway. His right side hurt abominably when he slowly reached up with his right arm and gently placed his hand on the doorknob. He paused a moment and prepared himself mentally, and then he twisted the knob and yanked the door open in one fluid motion. The sergeant threw himself to the left of the doorway, and then prepared to fire should men emerge.

  The moment that the large door swung open, a dozen men standing inside the room opened fire with their automatic weapons. However, they were firing at the expected chest level of men who might open the door. The sergeant’s precaution of having his men go to the prone position saved many lives. His men returned fire at the men they could see inside the room. One of Ramon’s men pulled the pin on a grenade and hurled it inside the room. In seconds, the grenade detonated and bits of debris flew through the air from the open doorway to rain down on the prostrate men.

  Before the smoke from the explosion had cleared, Ramon and four men entered the room. Sweeping their weapons in their line of sight as they entered the room, they fanned out and proceeded deeper into the room through a haze of smoke and dust. One of the men spotted an enemy and fired two rounds. That prompted a shot from the left and the bullet slammed into the right side of Sergeant Marino’s chest knocking him to the ground as if a sledgehammer had hit him. The three men with him charged deeper into the room. They began spraying the room with automatic weapons fire in their effort to kill any remaining enemies.

  Ramon struggled to his feet with the aid of another man as more of his men entered the room to help finish off the resistance there. A dazed Sergeant Marino was helped from the room and once again, the medic was called for to tend his wounds. The medic opened his shirt and winced visibly. “Sergeant, are you a superstitious man?” he asked.

  “No, not especially,” the sergeant said wondering at the man’s strange question. Once again, the initial shock was wearing off.

  “Well I am, and I’d say that you are pushing your luck, Sergeant,” the medic said and then he said, “Hold him,” to someone beyond the sergeant’s field of vision. This time the medic took off the sergeant’s breastplate.

  “Mother of God,” Ramon heard the medic say, and the man performed the sign of the cross. The man showed the sergeant his large Latin cross he always wore under his uniform. Embedded in that cross was a deformed spent bullet. Your cross stopped the bullet meant for your heart my friend,” the medic said in awe and many of the sergeant’s men stared at him strangely. “Surely you are favored by God, Ramon,” the medic whispered as he laid the man’s cross back on his chest almost reverently after prying the spent bullet from it gently.

  The medic helped Ramon to his feet and handed him his breastplate. “The building is clear, Sergeant,” reported one of the men who emerged from the room in which the sergeant had been shot.

  “Good, then we go back outside and check the other buildings,” Ramon stated and turned to lead the way. Five of his men moved out ahead of the sergeant, determined that no one else would harm the man so cherished by God this day. Behind him, as he followed those men, others spoke of what had transpired with a sort of wonder and awe. At that moment, the Cuban-Americans under his command would have followed Sergeant Ramon Marino anywhere into any battle.

  ***

  When Ramon and his men exited the recesses of the structure where they had been fighting, the battle for El Morro was winding down. Corporal Santiago reported that the building with the women was clear of the invaders and the women were about to come out. The other buildings had been checked and all of the enemies in the fortress were dead. He further reported that Corporal Federico and his team were checking the bodies of the enemy to confirm that they were indeed dead.

  “Corporal Enrique?” asked Ramon who was especially fond of that fiery young corporal.

  Corporal Santiago shook his head, and said, “Killed while protecting the rear during the withdrawal, Sergeant.”

  Ramon shook his head sadly.

  Here and there, a shot occasionally sounded as the rear guard checked the enemy to ensure that they were all dead.

  The Cuban-American company had lost seven men and three were severely wounded. Another five had lesser wounds. With the aid of the support ships, Ramon’s men had killed at least two hundred of the enemy who as it turned out had been drugged half out of their minds on cocaine. This was why they had been able to fight on despite severe wounds.

  Ramon moved sadly to the place where the dead Cuban-Americans lay and knelt to say a prayer for their souls. His men near him knelt as well though many faced the fallen enemy to make sure none was left who might attack them. When he finished his brief prayer, Ramon stood sadly and turned toward the command building.

  He was approaching that building with his men behin
d him when he saw the strike force begin to emerge from the smoking structure. One of the men carried a small form wrapped in a blanket. The man carried the bundle with a gentleness not customarily associated with such big men. He laid the small form on the ground near Ramon and turned to face his men. “The Lieutenant wants one of you who speak Spanish to ask the women if they know this child,” he said indicating the small shrouded form. He then knelt and carefully unfolded the blanket from the child’s face. They had removed the garrote.

  Several of Ramon’s men were leading the women toward the main group of men. None of the women knew the child. The lieutenant approached them, and when he reached the group he asked, “Sergeant, did any of the women know the child?”

  “No, sir, they did not?” replied Sergeant Marino.

  “That’s probably for the best all things considered,” the lieutenant stated with a sad tone in his voice. He walked over to the prisoner who was sitting on the ground with his hands tied behind his back. The lieutenant reached down, grabbed a handful of the man’s hair, and dragged him to his knees. Pulling his pistol he said someone please translate this for me.”

  “I will, Lieutenant,” Ramon volunteered.

  “You have been found guilty of murdering the child in the blanket in a most heinous manner.” Ramon repeated the lieutenant’s words in Spanish and the man visibly paled. “For such crimes against God and nature, there can be no forgiveness,” the lieutenant stated, and again Ramon translated. “As God is my witness, I hope you rot in hell,” the lieutenant stated vehemently, and Ramon translated, adding that he also wished this fate for the man. Several of his men murmured their shared sentiments in this regard.

  Normally when the peacekeepers executed a man, they shot him in the back of the head to spare the man mental anguish prior to the execution. This wasn’t the case when the lieutenant executed the commander of the El Morro garrison who had so brutally sexually abused and murdered the child. Slowly the lieutenant cocked his weapon, pointed it at the man’s forehead, and looked the man in the eyes as he pulled the trigger.

  ***

  Ramon and his men loaded their dead aboard the patrol ship. He would be returning to America, at least until he could fulfill his obligation to his men and see those who wanted to go home back to their city. He had also promised to return to the three survivors of the plague ship and see that they were returned to Cuba.

  The women who had survived their captivity were taken into the cargo bay of the patrol ship and flown across the bay to the city of Havana where they were released. The body of the child was left in the makeshift blanket shroud on a bench. That was the best that they could do for those women and the child.

  As the peacekeepers flew away from Havana, the people who had been hiding in fear began to emerge and heard the stories told by the women survivors of the battle at El Morro.

  Once the women had been taken care of, the peacekeepers left Cuba and returned to Key West to drop off the Cuban-Americans and Ramon. Peacekeeper doctors and nurses stood ready to treat the wounded on Key West and Ramon’s men were to act as additional security until these personnel could be picked up and transported back to their bases.

  Captain Barnes and his crew, along with Lieutenant Wilcox’s strike force teams, and the eight fighters would be proceeding to make their way to the large-scale sea battle that had begun while they were making the trip back to Key West. They understood that by the time they could arrive, the battle would probably be over, but they felt that they should go. Peacekeepers might be lost at sea and in dire need of rescue.

  Chapter 19

  The peacekeepers flew to the location where they had decided that they would intercept the armada transporting the invasion force to America. They wanted to catch the armada near the center of the Gulf of Mexico on their northward voyage to America. By meeting them in that area, it wouldn’t matter which way the invaders tried to escape. The peacekeepers would have plenty of time to deal with them before they became a threat to land based populations where they could unleash their plague weapon.

  Two peacekeeper fighters were trailing the enemy and keeping the ships in visual range. By periodically checking the location of those two fighters, the council knew that the armada was still heading for the New Orleans area.

  The large peacekeeper air group deployed in their pre planned positions to await the attack. The Constitution was the first ship in line. Her four fighters had been launched but they were now sitting on top of the ship attached to the hull in forward positions where they would have the ability to supplement the weaponry of the battleship but still enjoy the relative safety of her thick armor beneath most of their airframes. Captain Young hadn’t ordered them to take on that dangerous assignment. The pilots had come to him with the plan and volunteered. They had argued that by supplementing the battleship weaponry from their perches they could aid in destroying the guns and still do so in relative safety. Bill had consulted with his engineer and Peter had pointed out that the pilots would be safer than they would be flying free, though how much safer was arguable. In the end, Bill had relented because he knew well the frustration that sometimes came from feeling held back. He also remembered the conversation he once had with Jim Wilison regarding requests that may not seem in the best interests of the ship but could turn out to be in the best interests of the crew. That conversation played a key role in his decision.

  Behind the Constitution hovered the battleship drone of the Peacekeeper. The drone operators had already launched their drones but they were now locked to the top of the outer hull of the battleship drone. All drones now had that lockdown capability for use in transit inside their mother ships. The drones were launched early because launching them from the cargo bay in the heat of battle would prove extremely difficult, and an open cargo bay door in the coming battle would be a serious liability.

  The Peacekeeper had been detached from its battleship module, and was in formation behind that ship.

  Behind the Peacekeeper hovered the six patrol ships that would participate in the battle. The patrol ships were named after their states. Present and ready for the battle were the Tennessee, the Louisiana, the Texas, the Nevada, the Georgia and the Alabama. Each of these ships also held two drones, which would be committed to the fighting. Those drones had been launched and were currently locked to the top of the hull of their mother ships. This gave the air group twenty-four drones that would be the first peacekeeper forces to engage the enemy.

  Behind the patrol ships, hovered the one hundred fighters that would participate in the attack. These fighters were formed up in four rows of twenty-five. The drones had not been launched yet, but they would be the moment that they had a visual on the enemy armada. The entire peacekeeper air group hovered ten feet above the surface of the sea to prevent the enemy from locating them with radar and reduce the likelihood of being spotted prematurely. Thankfully, the wind was a slight factor; otherwise, they would have been forced to make almost constant maneuvers to remain in their formation.

  During the periodic course checks made with the scouts who were trailing the enemy armada, Pol entered the data in the computer and ran it through a program that Patricia had written to ensure that the armada was still approaching them as close to dead center head on as possible. This was important to minimize the chances of being spotted early.

  The waiting was difficult for many of the peacekeepers who understood that this was not going to be a battle that all would survive. The sheer firepower that the invading armada had to throw at them guaranteed peacekeepers would die in this battle.

  The peacekeepers would be facing twenty-three ships armed with a total of sixty-eight, fifty caliber machineguns, and a host of other weapons. It was also quite likely that at least some of those ships would be equipped with shoulder-fired missiles of some sort. But their fifty caliber weapons alone represented a huge obstacle. Flight leader Jeff Brown knew from personnel experience that those fifty caliber weapons could render a fighter inoperabl
e with just a few hits. The fighter pilots were betting their lives on the ability of the Constitution, the battleship drone, and the standard drones and their operators, to neutralize a significant number of those heavy machineguns.

  The fighter pilots were not aware that Pol, with the council’s approval, had taken the unprecedented step of speaking with the drone operators and explaining to them that for this mission their drones were expendable. They had to take out as many of the fifty caliber weapons as possible. Every gun the drones destroyed could and probably would save peacekeeper lives. He encouraged them to be careful and not throw away the drones in the opening minutes of the engagement, but to set aside the normal rules of engagement when it came to trying to preserve their drones if the risk was so high that attacking a target would cost them a drone.

  One hour into the waiting, their luck changed for the worse. The wind began to gain strength and it became necessary for the pilots to make course corrections frequently. The waves were also becoming larger and the flight group was forced to increase their altitude to twenty feet. Even then, in the fighters it would be like experiencing turbulence as the waves passed under their electromagnetic field emitters. Frustrated by this and understanding how this was affecting the fighter pilots, Tim asked for an update on how far out the armada was from their current position. Pol soon reported that the armada was now an estimated seventy-four miles out. “I say we launch the drones, and proceed with the attack. If we fly even at a slow speed toward the armada, we can remedy half of our positioning problems. Otherwise our fighter pilots will be beat to death by the turbulence before they can even enter the battle.”