Countdown: M Day

by Tom Kratman

  “No, no,” Reilly counseled. “You did have to destroy them. Eventually. Just luck …well, mostly luck, that the unreliable propellant wasn’t an issue, today. All the good stuff we’ve saved for the move on Georgetown.”

  Turning his face back to Stauer, Reilly asked, “Speaking of towns, sir, how’s Cazz doing?”

  “Holding on,” Stauer answered. “Not a lot more than that, though The Venezuelan Air—“

  The regimental commander was interrupted by the blaring of horns, and a large number of men screaming, “Air raiaiaid!”

  “Speaking of which, Boss,” Reilly said over one shoulder, as he sprinted for his command vehicle, “be seeing you around.”

  Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela

  Leaving the bridge over the Rio Caroni probably bought us two, maybe even three days, thought Cazz. Fuckers must have shit themselves thinking we’d left it open only to continue our charge and occupy Ciudad Bolivar.

  ’Course, the down side of that is that now they’re using it to support the people hemming us in. And nothing we know about them makes sense except that they’re a hodgepodge of whatever could be scrapped together in a hurry, that they’ve got some old AMX-30 tanks that the turrets don’t seem to traverse well on, and that they outnumber us by …well,. by a whole lot.

  Third Battalion had started out with observation posts, at least, covering all the major roads into town, Highway Ten, Avenida Angosturita, Avenida Guayana, and Avenida Leopoldo Sucre Figerella. The latter two, what with the bridges down, had been mere OPs. The other two, and a few key spots nearby, had been more strongly outposted, a platoon each, with the intent of buying a little time if Hugo made a stronger push, sooner, than Cazz really expected.

  They’d made the push, though it had come later than expected. It had also come stronger than expected. Now, Cazz’s battalion was almost entirely confined to the area he’d picked for his last ditch stand. Basically, that position was the Rio Orinoco at their backs, Avenida Jose Gumilla on their right, Highway Ten on the left, and Avenida Guayana to their front. At just under two kilometers, it was a ghastly long front to try to hold in a city, with but a single infantry battalion.

  On the other hand, Cazz thought, They’re a lot less willing to destroy the place to get us out than we are to wreck it to keep it. And it’s not as if we didn’t make them bleed pretty badly driving us back to this.

  From somewhere in the rear, an open space not far from the river, what sounded like a dozen mortar shells thunked outward. Thirty-seven seconds later, Cazz heard the splash of shells somewhere to his south.

  Odd, too, that the entire police force, for all practical purposes, elected to surrender to us rather than be let go, as I offered. I suppose they were afraid they’d be used as infantry. They probably would know, if anyone would. Hmmm; should I have driven them out anyway? Nah, they don’t eat much and we’ve got plenty of food. Especially after we looted every state-owned grocery store in the city, near enough. Plus, they’ve been useful building fortifications. Well..it’s not like they’re soldiers who can’t be put to military work, is it?

  The Drunken Bastard, El Porvenir, Panama

  If the locals thought the painted Styrofoam boat was a little on the odd side, they didn’t say anything about it. Indeed, they seemed pretty happy to have Chin’s crew show up for dinner at the local restaurants, or buy their groceries, such as were available, locally. They did a lot of drinking, in what passed for the local watering holes.

  For his own part, Captain Chin spent his days inspecting his boat and crew, watching CNN, Fox, and the Spanish channels intently, and desperately wishing that regiment would give him a little guidance …some intelligence …a word, perhaps, that they still exist. But nooo, they’re too busy; they’ve got more important things—

  “Hey, Skipper?” asked the watch.

  “Yeah, what is it,” Chin snarled, not happy at having his two minutes of hate interrupted.

  “Well, I don’t know how important it is, but CNN was in one of their tirades talking about illegal mining of the sea—”

  “It’s not illegal,” the captain said. “They just want it to be. Trust me; if a non-socialist state were being mined by a socialist one, they’d be all in favor of it.”

  “But you’re a socialist, Captain.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not a hypocrite. Anyway, what was so fucking important on CNN?”

  “Oh, just that in the middle of their editorial, they cut to the international response to this …ummm …how’d they phrase it? Ah, yes, high seas terror. It was—”

  “The response please?”

  “Sorry, Skipper.” The crewman hung his head. “Anyway, they showed a film of two minesweepers—one little one, one big one—leaving Santiago de Cuba.”

  Chin’s head shot up. “When?” he demanded.

  “Um …yesterday, I think, Skipper.”

  “Hah!” In a moment, Chin was at his chart table. “Get your ass to what passes for ‘downtown.’ Round up the crew, drunk or sober or fucking some of the local oppressed masses or any combination of the above. We’re in business!”

  Sure, the world was in the middle of a nasty—“oh, please don’t call it a”—depression. Sure, hundreds of millions were out of work. But even in a world class depression, business—albeit to a less than ideal degree –continues.

  One business that was barely scraping by was a German firm, Augenblick. They were in the business of satellite imagery, in real time, for what was actually a fairly modest fee. The resolution was perhaps not everything one might want, though it was entirely suitable for monitoring the advance of glaciers, the increasing snow cover in the northern hemisphere, and sundry matters of agricultural importance. A man in a foxhole? No, that was beyond Augenblick’s ability.

  On the other hand, a ship, a wooden-hulled, ship, a forty-eight point eight meter wooden-hulled ship? That, the company could handle. And, they kept records, on line, which could be downloaded. Of course, going through those could be time consuming. It was dark before the boat was ready to depart.

  “There’s the bitch, right there,” Chin said to his exec, his finger tapping the monitor. The screen showed a presumptive minesweeper, a Sonya Class, leaving Santiago de Cuba. It was moving slow, leaving barely a wake behind.”

  “Okay, Skipper,” the XO agreed, “I can see that. But what’s the little one following behind.

  Chin’s face scrunched for a moment, thinking far back to certain transfers between the defunct Soviet Union and the moribund hereditary monarchy of Cuba. “That’s a Yevgenya class minesweeper. Bet you a week’s pay it will be taken under tow by the bigger one, the Sonya Class, within three hundred miles of leaving port, though probably sooner.”

  Chin faced his first officer, the faces of the pair lit only by the light of the monitor. “I want you to go over the files with a fine tooth comb. Find the speed. Determine if the little one’s in tow by now. Determine the speed for that, too.”

  The exec nodded understanding. “I suppose you’ll want a course, too, Skipper.”

  “Check it, if only for the sake of thoroughness. But I’ll bet you another week’s pay that the two of them are heading to Maracaibo.”

  The exec shook his head. “I only look stupid, Captain, and then only when I drink. I won’t take either of those bets.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Dice are rolling; the knives are out.

  Would-be presidents are all around.

  I don’t say they mean harm,

  but they’d each give an arm

  To see us six feet underground.

  —Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, Evita

  Miraflores Palace, Caracas, Venezuela

  “Stop that column,” Chavez demanded, throwing a pen at the map hanging on the wall. “Stop it now! I want every available aircraft dedicated to bombing that armor into scrap!” Hugo was in a fine fury, nor was it made any better by the knowledge that he had ordered the brigade at Kaieteur out from its safe fastness to where it
could barely be supported and was, in fact, routed.

  And, given the example of the late chief of intelligence, thought the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General Ortiz, I really don’t want to be the one to remind him. Hugo’s getting progressively less reasonable. Ortiz was young looking and fit, with all of his hair and all of that native black. In his dress blues, gold-trimmed and bemedalled, he was a magnificent sight. Though, if Chavez thought so, he hid that opinion rather well.

  Ortiz had a sudden thought. Funny; the army’s treated Chavez with kid gloves ever since the day it realized he might just someday end up as president, which was predictably going to become the office of dictator. I doubt he’s ever had someone really disagree with him, much less chew his ass, in thirty years or more.

  Okay, so what are my options? I can bend over, order the useless strikes he wants. Then, when they fail—as they will fail; we aren’t worth a flying fuck at bombing moving targets and we don’t have the precision guided ordnance to make up for our lack—hehave my head.

  Or, maybe, I can be honest with him and insist we go after the bridge. He’ll overrule me; we’ll fail; and then he’ll have my head.

  Or, and this is so risky it makes me shudder, I can throw a screaming shitfit at him, shock him silly, we go after the bridge and take it down, and that stops the column. Of, course, that might cost me my head, too, but it’s my best chance and our best chance.

  By background Ortiz was a fighter pilot. Neither cowardice nor indecision are notable in the breed, not in any air force worth its salt.

  In for a penny, in for a pound.

  Ortiz stood so decisively that even Chavez shut up. Good sign. He slammed his fist to the huge conference table and said, “No! No, Mr. President, we are not going after the column any more than it takes to slow it down. We’re going after the bridge over the Essequibo that crosses Awartun Island. That is our only chance to save this campaign.”

  For a few moments, Chavez’s mouth worked like a fish out of water. No one has spoken to me like that in …I can’t remember how long. Do I shoot him for insubordination, or …

  “Make your case, General,” Chavez said. “But make it quick; there isn’t much time.”

  Ortiz forced away the smile he felt growing on his face. Huh; so it’s going to work.

  “Mr. President,” the general said, forcing earnestness and sincerity into his face and his words, “we’re already on it. The first flight of Sukhois went after the armored column on the south side of the Potaro. They are still hitting them. They were diverted from a strike on Ciudad Guyana, so what they have for weapons is suboptimal. Frankly, we don’t have the optimal weapons.

  “I’ve sent the next flight also to intercept the enemy armor. They won’t do any more good than the first one did. Everything after that needs to be carrying high explosive and a few anti-radiation missiles And all of that ordnance needs to go onto the bridge until it comes down.

  “Our only chance of buying the paratroop brigade at Cheddi Jagan airport enough time to prepare to defend is dropping that bridge.”

  Ortiz felt his heart sink as Chavez shook his head. As quickly as it sank, it arose still more rapidly when the president said, “Do it. And I hope you know what you’re risking.”

  Ortiz drew himself up with a dignity the mere uniform couldn’t hope to match. “Mr. President,” he said, “my youngest son will be leading the first mission to go after the bridge.”

  I gambled, thought Hugo Chavez, lying in bed next to his latest not-very-pretty hence not-damaging-to-the-ego mistress. I gambled, and it looks like I’m going to lose. Fucking gringo bastards.

  The sound of the crowd outside the palace hardly ever ended now. More than once Chavez had considered having them dispersed by any means reasonably necessary. Each time he’d refrained. They were his people, after all. They were the reason he’d taken power in the first place.

  My people as long as I’m their leader. How long is that going to last? Imports are cut off, except by truck from Brazil. I can’t feed a country by truck; at least I can’t feed this one. No goods in the shops. Plenty for sale on the black market, though, at prices almost nobody can afford. I considered passing out a lot more money, until the economists—even the properly Marxist ones—pointed out that doubling the money supply would just double the price of goods.

  And all the news from the war is bad. A corner of Ciudad Guayana still in enemy hands and the army is helpless to pry them out of it. A whole brigade of the Fifth Division a shattered wreck, trying to escape back to Kaieteur in little penny packets through the jungle.

  Can’t even tell the people it was a pyrrhic victory for the enemy, either, since that enemy will demonstrate they didn’t actually suffer much when they kick our asses at Cheddi Jagan Airport, which I suspect they will.

  Can I just declare peace and leave Guyana? Not a chance. “My people” will be dancing under my hanging, tongue-protruding, strangled corpse within the day. And it wouldn’t solve the problem, anyway. My ports will still be mined, and the enemy will have no reason to tell us where the mines are, if they even know.

  Chavez rolled over, facing the window toward the courtyard and, incidentally, facing away from his paramour. The sound was louder in that posture, causing him to turn the opposite way, facing her.

  Maybe the Cubans can clear the mines and save us. This is so not working out the way it was supposed to.

  International Waters,

  Three Hundred and Twenty Miles Northwest of Aruba

  If there was such a thing as the Platonic ideal of “ship-shape and Bristol fashion,” the Sonya Class minesweeper would have been the Platonic ideal of its opposite.

  The minesweeper didn’t have a name. The hull number, and it possessed one, had long since fallen off the wooden hull in a drizzle of paint flecks. Only the grace of God—not that Cuban sailors were allowed to profess belief in God, of course—kept the water out. Certainly the quicky paint job they’d plashed on for the benefit of the CNN cameras wouldn’t.

  The engines …they were another story. There’d been no time to overhaul those, though Cuba, since the rise of the Castros, had made keeping ancient motors running something of an art. They strained, coughing great clouds of diesel to the heavens as the entire assembly of parts floating in loose formation made its maximum eight knots southward. It could possibly have managed eleven—the condition of the engines ruled out its specification speed of fourteen—but for the need to tow the Yevgenya Class. That boat was, if that were possible, in worse shape still.

  On the bridge, gazing forward, stood the captain, a Castro by name but no relation to the ruling clan. And what will happen to us if a storm comes up, he thought, only the God we’re not supposed to believe in knows. He’s not telling, but I’m pretty sure we drown. Hell, the only thing the navy has that even looks seaworthy is that replica of the Granma they haul out for parades.

  Still, if she’ll only hold together for another forty hours, we’ll be close enough to Aruba to defect. Not as good as defecting to the United States, of course, but a damned sight better than staying in Crown Prince Raul Castro’s kingdom of the starving.

  I wonder how many of the crew will willingly join me. About two thirds, I think. The rest, if they find out what I have in mind, will shoot me in the head and pitch my body over the side for the sharks. Even at that, I was lucky to convince higher command that this was such a suicide mission that only unmarried men should be taken.

  The boat’s chief maintenance officer—in a crew of a mere forty-three, he was, strictly speaking, the only maintenance officer—ahemed from behind. “Captain Castro, I’ve got the forward twin 30mm up. The rear 25mm is hopeless.”

  “No matter, we don’t have much ammunition for it anyway,” the boat’s master replied. “The sonar?”

  The maintenance officer’s head rocked from side to side. “Won’t be worth a shit for at least another day, sir. Maybe two. Assuming I can get it working at all.”

  “All right,” t
he captain said. “We have that much time, anyway.”

  South of Cheddi Jagan Airport, Guyana

  None of the Sukhois landed at the airport. The strip could take them well enough, but ordnance, fuel, and the ground crews were all back around Caracas. Still, in a fairly continuous stream, the distinctive aircraft each made at least one pass, after dropping their ordnance on the gringos’ heads. This was done at Ortiz’s order, despite the possibility of being lazed to destruction, in order to buck up the moral of the men and women frantically digging in, in a long arc running from Lana, Guyana, on the Essequibo, east-southeast toward Saint Cuthberts. Most of the paratrooper brigade’s strength didn’t stretch so far, however, being concentrated on the two roads that ran south from the airport, paralleling each other.

  Every now and again a Tucano would fly overhead, dipping its wings in turn. There wasn’t much fuel at the airport for them, nor was there much ordnance to carry, but what they could do, their pilots were determined to do.

  A Sukhoi streaked above, causing Arrivillaga to wince at the sonic boom—it flew quite low—even as he muttered, “Don’t like the flyboys, never did, but the gringos would have been on us already if not for them.”

  “What was that, Mao?” Larralde asked, heaving a shovelful of dirt from the fighting position they took turns excavating.

  “Just that we’re lucky,” the sergeant major replied. “And that the gringos should have been on us by now.” And, though I won’t say it, that we’re box of rocks stupid for not considering the possibility they might be and digging in starting as soon as we took this place. But, then, we already knew we were stupid or we’d not have made a career of the army, right?