Tyranny in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  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.

  “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

  TWENTY-NINE

  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.

  “Sí, 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. “Sí. He radioed he had no trouble flying over Guatemala and Honduras. The fuel dumps were exactly 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 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 Humberto 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 A.M., Eduardo Cortes lifted his helicopter from the airfield at La Crus, Nicaragua. He glanced through the Plexiglas windshield as the commander of the airfield, Colonel Santiago Gomez, waved him off. Eduardo smiled. All 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 t
he 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 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 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 his 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?”

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

  THIRTY

  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 to Jean-François 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 Mexican 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.”

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