The Western Front - Parts 1-3 (Western Front Series)

by Archer Garrett

  “Viper One, Texas Air National Guard, on the prowl.”

  “Viper Two right behind you, Viper One.”

  “Get up here and hold my hand, V2.”

  “Roger.”

  After leaving Corpus Christi, the two jets rolled east at a forty five degree angle until they were nearly ten miles off the coast. They dropped within meters of the gulf waters and each other and aimed their noses due south. The jets screamed over the water with perfect synchronization. The shadows of the jets bobbed and danced across the waves underneath them as they streaked towards Mexico. Wyman Wolfe, call sign Lobo, could not imagine a more beautiful or exhilarating place to be than right where he was. He leaned back and enjoyed the ride.

  Guano, his aptly named wingman, was uncharacteristically quiet. Lobo however, knew exactly what his old friend was up to. Guano had slipped the buds of his music player into his ears and was in his own private, techno-trance world. Lobo reasoned it was most likely one of three or four of the same, stupid songs; probably Danger by CIRC. Lobo did not seem to mind Guano’s quirks, though. Whatever kept him calm was a welcome addition.

  “Viper Two, What’s your status?”

  “Just working on my tan V1. Permission to fence in?”

  “Cross the fence V2; V1 crossing as well.”

  Both pilots commenced the procedure of preparing their jets for combat. The switches were one by one flipped up or down to the appropriate mode as they quickly approached their destination.

  “Turn off the chick music, sweetheart; we’re closing in.”

  “Roger Viper One, but I don’t come to your office and call you names while you’re working.”

  “Negative, you actually do that.”

  “Well, in that case...”

  “Alright Viper Two, let’s roll at a thirty and point it due west. ETA two minutes, twenty seconds.”

  “Wilco.”

  The two jets rolled in a formation so perfect and tight, it was as if they were controlled by a single pilot. They climbed to a couple hundred feet as they crossed the shoreline and flew into Mexico. As they screamed towards Matamoros, their first target was the Soviet-era air-defense system that had been installed just east of the Olympic Park. The jets were screaming forward faster than their approaching sound, they had the early morning sun directly behind them and were flying at elevations that were completely undetectable by the old SA-5 systems that were in place; they were invisible emissaries of death.

  “Target located and acquired, V1; awaiting command.”

  “Let’s rock their world.”

  The low-flying jets were below the effective range of the anti-aircraft missiles. The SA-5 Gammon was helpless against the F-16s. As the pilots released their HARM missiles, they banked hard to the north and briefly danced back into Texan airspace. The missiles immediately detected the Gammon’s fire control radar signal. The HARMs self-guided to their target, achieving MACH 1 prior to impact. The explosion was massive and was amplified by the 500 pound warheads on each of the six anti-aircraft missiles. The early morning impact shook the entire city from its slumber.

  “Whoo! Tango Uniform, V1!”

  “Roger that V2, let’s roll back south for another meet and greet.

  The jets once again banked hard and approached the second system, located several miles west of Olympic Park. As they reached their target, they released another perfectly-timed volley of missiles. Guano, unable to contain himself, roared in triumph.

  The jets turned vertical and climbed several thousand feet, before looping back and aiming themselves towards their main target, the park itself. As they shrieked towards Olympic Park, the jets released their Maverick missiles and Mk 83 bombs. The resulting explosions engulfed the entire area, utterly decimating the eighty-plus vehicles stationed there.

  “Good job V2, now we just have one final item; hold my hand and let’s pay our friends at the airport a visit.”

  “My pleasure; let’s go find some bandit cats.”

  As they flew their tight formation over General Servando Canales International Airport, they could see the pilots scrambling to six jets below. The F-5s were over half of the Mexican Air Force’s entire fighter squadron. They continued their path to the east, putting some distance between them and the F-5s and leading them over the gulf. They slowed their pace, allowing the jets time to takeoff and gain some ground on them. After several moments, the first of the blips appeared on their radar.

  “Are you going to let me have a dogfight, V1?”

  “Absolutely not on my watch; play with your food some other time. Stay beyond visual range and let the am-rams do their thing. Besides, there’s too many.”

  “Too many? We might as well be fighting the Wright brothers!”

  “The answer is negative.”

  “Roger; speed and angels on the left.”

  “Speed and angels on the right.”

  Speed and angels was the confirmation for the predetermined altitude and velocity at which they would engage the hostiles. They simultaneously rolled in opposite directions and met again, facing the distant but approaching F-5s. They each released two volleys of AMRAAM missiles. The “am-rams” were a fire and forget missile, capable of engaging the defenseless fighter jets from beyond visual range. Nothing the F-5s had in their armament was capable of countering the attack.

  Within several seconds, four of the blips disappeared from the radar and Guano released another of his guttural roars. As the F-16s streaked by the remaining two F-5s, one of the Mexican pilots abandoned his jet and ejected into the gulf, nearly a mile from the coast. The abandoned fighter gradually lost altitude as it continued over the gulf, eventually slamming into the surface of the choppy waters.

  “I guess that hombre didn’t want to play.”

  “I’d hate to have to make that swim to shore.”

  “Give me the last one, Viper Lead.”

  “Roger; proceed with engagement, V2.”

  Guano made his final offensive maneuver and rolled once again to face the last aircraft. With the push of a button, the am-ram was engaged and on its way to its target. After several seconds, the final blip disappeared.

  “Sierra Hotel, V2! Now, let’s wrap it up and head north. We’ll need every bit of our juice to get back home.”

  “Roger that; lead the way.”

  “Drop it low and throttle up. If I’m lucky, I’ll make it back in time for coffee.”

  “Should’ve had a go pill.”

  ***

  Nearly twenty of the ERC 90s managed to escape Olympic Park while the Gammon systems were being destroyed by the aircraft. The park was engulfed by explosions as they pulled onto Constitucíon; they had barely escaped the carnage.

  The six-wheeled vehicles fled south down Pedro Cárdenas Gutiérrez towards San Fernando. The four-lane highway took the fleeing soldiers and sicarios through the dirty southern slums. The loud explosions from the north had roused the sleepy locals. They struggled outside into the morning light and stared in bewilderment at the black smoke billowing from the downtown district and surrounding areas. They watched as the ERC 90s roared past them, forcing frightened vehicles out of the way and onto the muddy shoulders.

  The armored vehicles raced across the bridge at the southern border of the city. The banks of the drainage ditch below them were already lined with families bathing and washing their clothes in the dirty water. The intermittent infrastructure was becoming even less reliable than before. The unsanitary conditions in the slums and the rest of the city were leading to an even higher rate of sickness and death, especially among children.

  As the lead vehicles barreled towards them, Barrett and Holt readied their teams on opposite sides of the highway. The soldiers hid behind two concrete buildings and anxiously waited for their quarry.

  “Steady; steady,” Barrett whispered into the radio, “Just a few more seconds… Dragon Teams One and Two get ready… Go!”

  Four anti-tank missiles exploded out of their launcher tubes and
raced towards their quarry. The launch caused one of the men to flinch hard, sending one of the rockets curving upward in a wide arc.

  The lead vehicle was hit low, near the front left tire. As the rocket exploded, the ERC 90 flipped forward and slid across the pavement upside down. The screeching sound of steel on asphalt was like fingernails on a chalkboard. A deep gash in the pavement followed the tank wherever it slid.

  The second vehicle was sandwiched by two simultaneous rockets fired from opposite sides of the highway. The top half of the ERC 90 was launched nearly thirty yards skyward and landed hard on the flat roof of a nearby residence. The building collapsed inward from the force of the impact and sent a great plume of dust into the air.

  “Dragon Teams Three and Four – wait! Hold your fire!”

  The remaining armored vehicles were doing something wholly unexpected. As they swerved to the shoulders to avoid the wreckage ahead, they were sliding, some sideways, to a complete stop. The top hatches were all popping open and the men inside were climbing out with their arms in the air – first one, then two and finally all of the men. They were unarmed and terrified, their weapons left in the vehicles. As they climbed out, they laid prostrate on the pavement.

  Barrett shouted to the men as he stepped out into the road, “Estás rodeado, todo el mundo al suelo! Ponga sus manos en el suelo delante de ti! Si alguien se mueve, vamos a disparar!”

  The men complied with the orders and continued to lay motionless in the dirty road.

  Holt radioed to Barrett, “What are we going to do with all of them?”

  “I don’t know. We can’t take them; we certainly don’t have the resources to deal with them in Mansfield. Besides, we barely have enough people to drive all these vehicles, much less tend to prisoners; there must be close to seventy of them. Let’s get them lined up and I’ll address them.”

  The teams stepped out from behind their cover and corralled the prisoners, while Barrett paced along the line and addressed them, “Usted es libre de ir, seguir caminando hacia el sur y no volver aquí. No luchar de nuevo, la próxima vez no será tan indulgente. Ahora Go!”

  The soldados and sicarios nodded graciously and marched past the teams in a single file line to the south, too afraid to look back. They knew that they would have shot the guardsmen dead as they lay on the ground, if the roles had been reversed. As the grateful men left, the soldiers under Barrett’s command inspected their newly-acquired rides.

  “Well boys, if you didn’t consider yourself a guerilla before, you can’t deny it now.” Barrett turned and said to Holt, “Can your men grab the Strykers?”

  “We’re on it.”

  “Good, let’s double time it. I don’t know if anyone else might be coming our way and I sure don’t want to give these babies up.”

  Barrett keyed up his radio before climbing into his vehicle and said, “Dragon Warrior here, do you copy Cochise?”

  “Affirmative; go ahead DW.”

  “We’ve commandeered seventeen ERC 90s. We’ll be following the Strykers out on the designated route. Do not frat us Cochise.

  “Copy that, DW; thanks for the heads up. I guess congratulations are in order. If you can’t get your own tanks, then just steal the other guys; is that how it works now?”

  “I’ll take anything I can get at this point, Cochise.”

  “Roger that. You better get moving, DW; we’re a few minutes out and closing fast. See you round the campfire tonight.”

  “Affirmative, stay safe.”

  ***

  The rhythmic Whoof, Whoof, Whoof of the helos echoed off of the rooftops as the four, Apache Longbows crossed the Rio Grande from Brownsville into Matamoros. Thanks to the successful strikes by Lobo and Guano earlier that morning, the four gunships’ mission was a walk in the park. If Governor Baker had not sent the F-5s to eliminate the Mexican jets, the choppers would have been in for a very tough day. Cochise grinned at the thought of the well-executed plan as he led his team of Longbows flew over downtown Matamoros.

  Cochise, the commander of the air-strike team, had taken his call sign from the nantan warrior of the same name. Cochise lead the Chokonen band of Chiricahua Apaches in the latter years of the 19th century. The Apache chief and his warriors battled both the Mexican and American governments’ intrusions into their lands in the Sonoran region of Mexico, southern Arizona and New Mexico. They mastered the art of the guerilla during their struggle against annihilation. The Mexican government often resorted to using American and Native American mercenaries against the Chiricahua, paying a bounty for each scalp they collected, regardless if it was man, woman or child.

  The modern day commander was of Lipan Apache lineage, from the Devil’s Backbone region in the central Texas Hill Country. The ruthless displays of violence by the Zetas and Gulf cartels against the people along the border reminded him of the stories he had heard from his grandfather. The acts of beheading, flaying and even scalping were becoming far too common these days for him. His contempt for the cartels and those that supported them was great. He loathed the depravity that they peddled, and he had seen what it had done to his own family.

  “Alright cowboys, I want a quick flyover of the park to make sure everything was destroyed. Not a single tank is leaving this place on my watch.”

  “Roger that, Chief.”

  The Longbow was the most advanced of the Apache gunships. The main contrast between it and other variants was the large dome that was visible above the chopper’s four-blade rotor. The dome housed sophisticated radar that allowed the Longbow to detect and engage targets while it was hidden behind cover, such as trees or buildings. It also contained equipment that would allow multiple gunships to automatically engage a target that had been detected by a single Longbow. Each chopper was also capable of controlling multiple UAVs from the air, affording them the ability to literally make dynamic, on the fly adjustments to the drones’ mission over the battlefield.

  As they flew over the Olympic Park, they engaged several vehicles that had somehow managed to escape the earlier bombardment unscathed. The ERC 90s were no match for the Hellfire missiles launched from the choppers.

  “Excellent work. Now, let’s do some real damage.”

  They continued over the sprawling city and encircled the aging, coal plant that supplied the city’s power grid. They targeted the towering, rusted structure that housed the plant’s turbines and generators with the same deadly Hellfires. As the plant collapsed in on itself, the Longbows rolled away from the immense heat of the blast and regrouped, before continuing on with their mission. A spectacular ball of flames and thick black smoke rolled and churned skyward as the choppers disappeared to the south.

  Their final target, the airport, was all but abandoned after the earlier loss of the F-5s. Apparently the staff had assumed that more trouble might be on its way, and they were right. The choppers flattened the towers, hangars and terminals with the missiles and then strafed the runway with the remainder of their arsenal. The nearly forty Hydra rockets fired from each Longbow peppered the solitary runway, rendering it completely unusable.

  “Alright boys, we’re all out of firecrackers; let’s get these birds back to the nest. I don’t think our friends will be calling Matamoros home any time soon, and if I’m guessing correctly, we’ll be able to say the same thing about Reynosa in a couple days. But until then, thank you fine pale-faces for a splendid day on the town.”

  Ch apter 28

  William

  Washington, D.C.

  He smashed his first cigarette of the day in the ashtray on the nightstand beside him and sat up in bed with a smile. Over the past several days, he could not quit smiling even if he tried; everything was going perfectly. He finally climbed out of bed and made his way to the tiny kitchen.

  Houston had still been largely a success. Although one of the nuclear devices had been discovered and disabled, the second had been detonated precisely as planned. News had been slow to develop on the attack, perhaps because it had been
so devastating. Hopefully there would finally be some updates.

  William started the pot of coffee and sauntered across the room to a heap of wrinkled clothes that he had been robbing from over the past week. He had been so busy stoking the destruction of the republic, there was scarcely time for the more mundane tasks. He retrieved a pair of faded jeans and shook the wrinkles out of them before pulling them on. He dug through the pile of clothing for a moment before finally locating his favorite brownshirt. He stumbled back into the kitchen while he pulled it over his head. William poured a tall cup of hot coffee and grabbed his coat and pistol, before trotting out the door.

  He had viewed the city through new lenses over last few days. Perhaps it was because he was seeing the fruits of his labor. He had heard people begin to openly question the republic’s ability to protect its citizens. Despite speculation on who had committed the terror strikes, no arrests had been made. He was sowing the seeds of discord and polarization. People were now beginning to blame the other. The other was a powerful motivator to action; whether it was left wing or right wing, minorities or majorities, the one percent or the ninety nine, people were now beginning to turn on their neighbors. He was clearing the way for hate. Soon, the poison would destroy the fabric of society, so that it could be rebuilt in a new fashion. So far, it was working quite well.

  He gazed around the half-empty city as he made his way to Tonic. He admired the tall office buildings, the beautiful and historic churches, the old but majestic residences and complimentary architecture of George Washington University. He had a newfound appreciation for D.C. that he had previously denied himself. He chuckled at the thought.

  He was content.

  He stepped into Tonic and made his way through the empty establishment to his nook in the corner. The bar was warm and inviting, a welcome reprieve from the cold air outside. He ordered a bloody tonic and a plate of hummus and sprawled across the leather couch. The heat from the hearth felt good on his face. He shrugged out of his jacket and relaxed as he waited for his refreshments.