“The plot thickens. Well, that’s a story in itself. When do we leave?”
“Dawn. I’ll send a car at Zero Four Hundred Hours.”
“Deal. I’ll be there. I might not have bells on, but I’ll be there.”
>>>>>>>>>
I had quite a bit of crap, what with my camera and Royal and my files and all, but the driver did not complain. It was a real staff car, one of those old RCMP Pierce Arrows, so space was not a problem. They picked up a few other officers, mostly Engineers, some still had Royal Engineer badges on their new blue Vanc uniforms. Not a chatty bunch, and when they did talk, it was in numbers. We were in a Five by five, and in the air a half hour later. I hogged a window seat on the outside, so could watch the sun come up over scenic Manitoba. It was flat. And wet. You could just about see the tracks of the glaciers from the last Ice Age. We came right down the face of the Rockies, the real scenery was on my blind side, but it was interesting. I had never flown before when I felt even partially safe, and never ever when I had nothing to do but take in the sights. Playing tourist was a rare experience for me, I was just sucking it in for all I was worth.
Denver was almost exactly halfway, so it was a solid five hours of droning away. They had some bottles of water, and some cookies, but no real food. It was loud and bumpy, I guess from winds coming off the Rockies, I would just as soon napped, but catching fifty winks on the back of a bucking bronco would have been easier. Quieter anyway. Someday I will remember earplugs.
We landed after noon, were met by Smith and the Mayor, George somebody, I didn’t make a note, they loaded us into a couple of city buses, there might have been a hundred of us dead heads, and ran us into town for shit, shower, shave, and shampoo, before a sit-down dinner at the biggest hotel in town. There were speeches, and toasts to Unity and Peace and Confusion to Our Enemies, carefully unspecified. The Engineers retired to the bar, I found a book store, wished I could call Hilda, and went to my room with Lord Peter Wimsey. A good companion, not demanding, not liable to lead you to excess. Perhaps a bit wry, but amusing.
>>>>>>
Repeat as needed. We got a good breakfast, loaded up and headed south. The scenery was less exciting; the air was hotter; we made it to Albuquerque and were cast adrift. You could see there had been fighting here, mobile engagements, lots of wrecked trucks and motorcycles, not many tanks and armored cars at all. It looked like mechanized cowboys and Indians, much like the games we played in the Gobi. Hit and run, chase and ambush, lots of airstrikes to thin the herds. The usual. George Olsen met me after a small delay, he had sent a message, so I wasn’t pissed. “Hey, boss, I got us a room, only one room, but that was a miracle. The good news is that we are on the telegraph line, you can wire your stories back to Vanc.”
“You look all grown up, George, war is doing you good.” You could tell just by the way he stood, the way his eyes moved, seeing what needed to be seen. His feet were on the ground.
“I guess. No close calls, I just stay well back, talk to the HQ folks, and shoot pictures of wreckage. Things move so fast down here; all I can do is play catch-up.”
“Only a fool sticks his head in the lion’s mouth. Anything happening right now?”
“No, we’re good for a couple days, what they tell me. Those fucking Texans are ninety percent bullshit anyway. We might move on Lubbock, or we might wait for the Colombianos to hook up. Cuidad Juarez is across the river from El Paso, that’s a big city with roads to all of Mexico. Otherwise there is a whole lot of empty nothing until you get to Dallas. Another five hundred miles.”
“The Germans are not full of bullshit. I bet you they’re unloading tanks in Houston as fast as they can drive them off the ships.”
“I’m not worried. These Mongols are ferocious,” he said. “But you know that from China, right?”
“I never saw them fight. Where we were, we had to do it the hard way.” That released a lot of memories, none of them I wanted to linger over. Yes, we had won, but it had not been any part of easy. “You see any enemy planes?”
“Not many. Just pursuits, no bombers, no zepps. The Texans are good pilots, they tell me, but they are outnumbered. Those Gunships you brought down will be a big help. Those Fives look ferocious.”
“They are that. They are that.” I had to agree, but could not feel his youthful optimism. I was only thirty-one, but I had seen too much the last two years. Those bastards always had one more trick up their sleeves. It wears you down. Anyway, it was still early in the day, too early to waste time in a bull session. I could write up my story of the flight down, or I could find more trouble to get into.
What did I want to do? “If you are on the telegraph line, are you in touch with Hilda?”
“No, not at all. She can only communicate through the PAS, and they are keeping a lid on everything. We are supposed to be under Euac control, but the Mongols and Hodak do pretty much whatever they want to do.”
“There’s a fucking surprise.”
“They do maintain a high morale.” George replied, deadpan.
“So, which one of us is supposed to be the master of sarcastic wit? I forget.” That cracked him up. Young guys are easy. There was nothing more to say. We went to find lunch, then I checked into the room and typed up my story, such as it was. I was kind of hoping of becoming a connoisseur of boredom one of these days. HQ Albuquerque was the old train station, as usual, where the telegraph lines were, I had my story sent to Vancouver, and went back for another installment on lunch. I was wasting away to a mere three-hundred-pound shadow of my former self.
>>>>>>>
I should have known it was too good to last. A messenger intercepted me as I was making one more pass at the dessert line. “Major Kapusta? Right this way, please?” I took a closer look, and the messenger was a lieutenant in a tailored uniform. And a woman, although it took another look to be sure. Oh, crap. Here it comes.
“Of course, Lieutenant.” I set my Boston cream pie down, and followed like a little puppy dog. There was a conference room on the next floor up, with two sets of guards, two in PAS Dress Blues, the other in the shags and rags and ammo belts of the Motorized Mongol Hordes. Inside the room was a long table, a map of the Gulf of Mexico, and three officers. One in blue, one in white, and one in a shade of khaki I had never seen before. Three generals, I knew two of them. Hodak, Earhart, and…
Earhart spoke first. “Miles, how nice of you to join us. I must apologize for the subterfuge, but all will become clear in a few minutes. May I introduce General Enrico Flores-Mendoza, Commander of the EUAC forces in this sector. General, Miles Kapusta, editor of the Grizzly Bear Express newspaper, and a very valuable citizen of Pacifica.”
“Charmed, I’m sure.”
I was less charmed, but I made polite noises. Hodak nodded, rare praise from that cold son of a bitch, said, “Miles. It’s been a while.”
“You seem to have recovered well.” The last time I had seen him, he had been covered in blood after the glider bombs took out the Pacifica Conference at Eagle Mountain. He just nodded again. “So, what’s the scoop. This has to be a big deal.”
Earhart smiled at that. Fuck, she was one beautiful woman. “Indeed it is. You cut to the quick as usual. I will do that same. In a word, we are about to take out Houston and deny the Gulf of Mexico, most of the Caribbean to the Reich. In one fell swoop, as it were. Look here.” She stepped to the map. “What would you say is the key to the whole Gulf Coast?”
“I already know. Havana. You have Cancún, an airbase in Havana, plus a Naval Base there, and you could shut that whole side of the Confederacy down.”
“Sometimes, Miles, I think you are wasted in the press.”
“I know my limitations, General, and am quite happy with my lack of responsibility.” She smiled, she might have thought I was joking, but I wasn’t. They are not making me responsible for the life and death of thousands of people I don’t know. “So, where do I come in?”
“I told you I owed you a favor for leavin
g you in the lurch that time. I want you to cover the biggest story of this war. You will be provided every possible convenience, including your own plane and crew. I would like, but I do not expect, a book written about this operation. You will have the highest possible priority filing your reports, make your own schedule, file your own flight plans, and in general set your own rules. In addition, you will be promoted to full colonel, and receive a cash bonus on completion of this… assignment. Do you agree?”
“I… Jeeze...”
“I have provided another bribe in case you proved reluctant.” She did smile that time, went to the rear door, opened it, and called, “You can come in now.”
Hilda walked in, took one look and ran into my arms. “Miles! What a surprise!” I glared over her shoulder at Earhart, who just beamed at me. She did have a lovely smile. The bitch.
>>>>>>>>
We retired to a bar, as soon as I said the magic word, “yes.” What a dumb fuck. In the soup again. “Okay, I want…” I was going to say ‘Olsen,’ but I had an even more fucked up idea. “I want that guy Demetri, Demetri Kirov. The Express knows how to find him. If you can’t get him, a newsreel cameraman. I’ll take the stills. You want documentation, you will get documentation. I want a Gunship, a crew of two. Pilot and co-pilot. Throw some seats in the back, if you have to cut down on the ammo, fine. One belt will be plenty. I just want to be able to shoot my way out of trouble, not fly missions. We will need a couple of foot lockers or something bolted down to store our shit in, the usual stuff. Hilda? Anything else?”
“A bathroom.”
“Good plan. A larger water tank, in case we have to camp out for a night or two. Maps, reference books, small arms. The whole ball of wax.”
“A typewriter table and a filing cabinet.” Hilda said.
Earhart had an aide taking notes, and after we wore down, she scanned the list, and just said, “Three days. I can’t tell you when we will move, for obvious reasons, but let’s just say we will be moving soon. Why don’t you two have a little honeymoon, and check back in here in three days. I’ll assign you a car and driver. It is a bit far to the beach, but I’m sure you can work something out.”
“But…” Hilda stuttered, “we’re not married.”
“I’m only a general, not a Justice of the Peace. You’ll work something out, I’m sure. See you in three days, Sunday, let’s say at noon in my office at the Air Field.” And off she went. Hilda looked at me, I looked at her.
“You hungry?”
“It is dinner time.” She looked at her watch. “Well past. We better eat. This is going to be hectic.”
“Keep your strength up.”
“You should talk. Maybe you should see if they have oysters.” Talk about your leading comments.
>>>>>>>>>
When we had caught up a little on our connubial duties, I realized I knew damn near nothing about Cuba. Easily solved, there had not been much of a battle for Albuquerque in the real sense. Buildings had not been smashed, the Library was still there and still open. I love libraries. Well, then. After the Spanish–American War, there was something called Treaty of Paris, where Spain ceded Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam to the United States for twenty million Yankee dollars. They got formal independence from the US in 1902, as the Republic of Cuba. But we still had the right to do pretty much any damn thing we wanted to do, and fuck you guys. Somebody named Gerardo Machado was elected president in 1924, and was still in power, although his shit was getting weak these days. He concentrated on tourism and letting Americans build hotels and restaurants were built to accommodate the influx of tourists. They were called tourists, but they were mostly interested in gambling and prostitution, which I knew, as they say, from colloquial sources. The Crash two years ago led to a collapse in the price of sugar, which touched off political unrest and repression. There were student riots, known as Generation of 1930, and that lead to a general strike. The Communist Party sided with Machado, which seemed odd, but who knows? It was apparently still a mess, but nobody seemed to care much, with all the other shit coming down.
Our biggest interest was a naval base, Guantánamo Bay, nicknamed Gitmo, on the southeast tip of the island. There was nothing in the library that told me what we had there, but if it was a Naval Base, it was a safe bet that they were none too fucking happy. There had been a couple battalions of Marines there, some patrol boats, maybe a destroyer or two, but no capital ships. It looked like a setup for the good guys, those being us.
Fine. Get your shit together, try to contact Demetri the long way through Dalny, and arrange our personal gear. Hilda was not hard to shop with, but she was still a woman, so that took time. Demetri responded the second day, he wanted to play, so we set up a deal, promoted Olsen to Field Editor, found him a woman photographer, a local half-Mexican lady of a certain age, who could double as translator. Rosita Morales, she had been a school teacher, raised a bunch of kids, and looked full of juice for a grandmother. “I’ve been a good girl for too long a time, my husband is gone, and I’m ready for an adventure. I’m not forty yet, so let’s go.”
>>>>>>>>
Demetri flew in right on time, we all met at Earhart’s office as specified at noon. We met our pilot and co-pilot, a couple, Don and Lucinda Williams, she was the pilot, he was the co. “What can I tell you? She has the reflexes of a ferret and the eyes of a hawk. She’s not the better man, but she’s sure the better pilot.” She just smiled. And hit him. She was dark, and stocky, he was could have been cast as a Norse god in a movie, but they seemed to have worked all that out.
Earhart briefed us. “As you would say, Miles, the fix is in. The remaining Naval Personnel at this Guantánamo base are cut off, have not been supplied for a month, are surviving on what they can buy from the locals. I suspect that would mostly be rum. The Marines are loyal, but they have nothing and no one to be loyal to. We are in contact via radio, morale is low. We will land at the airstrip there, provide cover for naval ships from Panama and Cancún, come to some accommodation with the civilian government, and see what we shall see.”
I had to stick my oar in. “And if this Gerardo Machado doesn’t want to play?”
“So much the worse for him. The Euacs are in no mood to play. The situation in Mexico was orders of magnitude worse than expected. The Pattonites were worse than barbaric. Their actions can only be compared to Genghis Khan.”
“Worse than the Huns? The krauts, I mean.”
“They were atrocious. I do not want to go into detail. It was horrible, and I do not use words loosely.” We already knew that. We double-checked every detail of the plane, nobody suggested a cute name, and we were ready to attack. The flight was twenty-seven hundred miles, we were going to take six hops, Albuquerque to El Paso, that was a short hop to meet up with the main force of Pacifica transports, then to Monterrey, Mexico City, Vera Cruz, Cancún, and then on to Guantánamo. We would spend the night in Monterrey, meet up with the Euac forces in what was left of Mexico City, the US Army had built and abandoned a large airfield outside the city during the siege, we would use that for the rendezvous.
>>>>>>>
There was no doubt that there had been a war in El Paso and Cuidad Juarez, right across the river. It had stopped burning, but some parts might have been smoking a little. A smashed mess, the town looked like it had been stepped on. There was no lack of flat ass desert to turn into air field, and it was full of every kind of plane you could imagine, except the big bombers, of course. Literally hundreds of them.
We landed, refueled, and took off again, following a flight of Fives, that was Earhart’s personal wing. Demetri was burning through the film, there was lots to shoot. He wished we were behind the flock, so he could get the whole armada in one shot, but not this time.
Monterrey had been occupied early in the Third Mexican War, it was in better shape than most, but we could see the telltale clouds of war from the Rio Grande, not far away at all. It was only four hundred miles from Houston, so we were on ale
rt for enemy planes. They would have been in for a surprise if they had attacked, but we approached from over the mountains, from the west, and sneaked in without apparent notice. We racked out in blankets under the wings, it reminded me of the last night I had spent with Maeve in Karamay. That Trimotor had burned over us, but this night was a bit more peaceful than that one, even if the refueling trucks bustled about until dawn.
I noticed that lot of the Fives, a couple flights at least stayed here, and were being hauled off the field into hangers and under tarps, so I guessed this was going to be a main strike base for the Houston attack.
>>>>>>>
It was five hours to Mexico City, there was nothing left of the city that we could see Even the ruins were ruined. The air base was covered with parked planes, all painted Euac khaki, their markings the red, black, and yellow of the Colombian flag in a rondel. Good, easier to spot and not shoot down in a dogfight. We just topped up our tanks, and hopped to Vera Cruz. That was educational, their air field was just about paved with Teals, the harbor filled with Hydrodome Tenders and busy with Loons out skipping through the waves on training missions. Those fuckers were almost too fast to see, only their wakes, white with prop wash, showed clearly where they were.
We did the same deal again, dropped off a couple wings of the big Fives, and roared off to Cancún. That was tighter, the jungle came right up to the city streets, some of which had been turned into runways for us. It was nearly dark, hard to see much, but it looked untouched by the war. Our numbers were lower, less than a hundred planes, half and half Euac and Pacifica. We got a break, General Earhart had booked us rooms and a dinner in one of the hotels on the beach. It was still a little rough and ready, some of the rooms were what they called cabanas, cabins in plain American, but the seafood was great. We made little piggies of ourselves, Demetri was in heaven, no palm trees in Russia. No women like the dark buxom ones that waited on us either, I bet. He didn’t step on his tongue, but he did leave the table early and eagerly.
Brown Bear Blues Page 23