“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, capitán.”
“I worry in order to remain alive.”
“Mexican radar in Chiapas will be very old. It will not 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-1’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, capitán. 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 Federales 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 Hafner, 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.
“Because they are lazy Mexicans, capitán. 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 federales!” 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, capitán,” 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, Capitán Hafner!” he shouted into the mouthpiece.
“Where are the other choppers?” Hafner 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 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 Hafner 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, capitán!’
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 Hafner,” 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 Hafner’s German accent. “I see nothing. You must be mistaken . . .”
“Look again, you fool,” Raul shouted. “They’re camouflaged. Use your radar . . . now!”
THIRTY-FIVE
Captain Klaus Hafner 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.
“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 fo
rest 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!”
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 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.
I am going to die today, Klaus thought. How is this possible, against only two enemy helicopters?
“Captain Benavidez!” a voice said. “We are flying over 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.
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, headqua
rtered in Pretoria, South Africa, proclaiming he had millions of followers and a better-equipped army to fight against Democratic tyranny.
Klaus Hafner 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 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.
I will not go down, Klaus promised himself. I 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 Hafner was killed instantly.
THIRTY-SIX
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.
Tyranny in the Ashes Page 23