Countdown: M Day

by Tom Kratman

  The door kicker trotted to the bodies. He didn’t recognize the woman, laying spread-eagled with her hair in a halo and her midsection a ghastly, bloody ruin. He did note she’d been very pretty and still had a pretty pistol clutched in one hand. The other was …

  “Holy shit! Get on the horn, Auntie. Tell Lava the target is dead. Repeat, Chavez is dead.”

  Standing on the west side, von Ahlenfeld kept one eye on the firefight developing between his strikers who had landed at the palace helipad and the baseball diamond beyond it and the honor guards in and around the burning barracks to the northwest. He’d also been listening carefully and occasionally talking it up to encourage, guide and coordinate the troops. Then he heard the magic words, “Chavez is dead.”

  “Confirm that, Auntie,” he’d demanded.

  “I confirm, Lava. I’m looking at his face now. Nobody else in this country is quite that ugly, is likely to have a dead mistress quite that pretty, or is so recently and totally dead. For that matter, he had his driver’s license in his pocket and that says, ‘Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias’. And we’re not talking about a little bit dead here, Lava; we’re talking all the way dead. Open the dictionary to the word ‘dead’ and—”

  “Can it, Auntie! I understand. Chavez is dead. Drag his body down here.” Von Ahlenfeld consulted his watch. Twelve minutes since we crashed in. Not bad, really.

  “Sergeant Major!” he shouted across the courtyard.

  “Sir!”

  “How many wounded have you got?”

  “Two and one dead,” Rattus Hampson replied.

  “Account for everyone inside the palace. Collect a couple to help you with the wounded and the dead. It’s time to torch the helicopter and leave.”

  Hampson’s lip curled with distaste. He was a Christian man, not given to needless destruction. The burning Hip was very likely to lead to a burnt palace. On the other hand, not my call whether it’s needless or not. “Roger, sir. Colonel Cruz?”

  “Over here, Sergeant Major,” Cruz called from the other side of the ruined Hip.

  “Get your prisoners on their feet and send them running out the south entrance. Then I’ll need your help and those of your team to move our wounded.”

  “Wilco,” Cruz answered. To his own people he said, “You heard the sergeant major. Get ’em on their feet, point their faces to the south, and slap ’em along.”

  Miraflores Park Helipad, Caracas, Venezuela

  I’ve been in worse spots, thought Major Hilton, commanding the two short teams stretched out west of the palace, facing the Honor Guard barracks across Urdaneta.Hundreds of tongues of flame lanced out from the building’s windows, in every quadrant where flame hadn’t taken hold. The lead launched on those eloquent tongues split the air, chipped wood and bark from the trees of the park, including the one behind which he sheltered, and occasionally found purchase in the flesh of Hilton’s strikers. His one Delta and one ex-Navy corpsman worked on keeping those hit alive at the southern end of the park, west of Bicentennial Plaza. They also took turns at seeking out the wounded to drag back, which wasn’t the safest job in the battalion.

  I’ve been in worse spots …but I can’t quite remember when or where.

  The two Hips that had carried Hilton’s men had arrived on station from the west just about as Cruz had put the brakes on his helicopter, over the palace. Number Two had come to a halt thirty feet over the northern corner of the baseball diamond, while Number Four had stopped over the Miraflores Park helipad. Both had swung their noses left and begun lashing the guard barracks with rocket fire, the rockets being guided by TV camera by the copilots in the Hips.

  The Ugroza upgrades were a massive improvement on the old, unguided 55mm rockets. Even so, the windows of the guard barracks were not so large that more than one in three actually got into the building before detonating. Most of the street lights shattered from the concussion of warhead against exterior wall.

  Number Two was the first to expend its single pod of sixteen. As soon as it had done so, it dropped down to the ball field, disgorging fourteen men who fanned out, six to the west along Calle Puente la Union, six to the north along Avenida Urdaneta, and two to set up an aid station west of Bicentennial Plaza. Those men discharged, Two pulled pitch, rising again over the trees to rake the barracks with machine gun fire from its single pod. Once that was seen to be in action, Number Four dropped to dismount Hilton and the nine other men with him. They, too, fanned out along Urdaneta, bringing the total of men facing the barracks to sixteen.

  At that point Hips Two and Four ceased fire and pulled south, out of small arms range of the barracks, saving their ammunition for what was certain to be a difficult withdrawal.

  The Honor Guard’s initial reaction had been stunned silence, except where interrupted by the screams and cries of the wounded. They were not slouches, however, and had one company at all times on alert. These had poured like a flood toward the palace to secure their president. Caught in the crossfire of two machine guns facing the barracks, west of the palace, two marksmen firing from the northwest corner of the palace, another machine gun firing along from the intersection of Urdaneta and Eighth, and several rockets fired by Hips One and Three, that flood had evaporated, leaving, so far as Hilton could tell, fifty or sixty bodies littering the roadway. The Pechenegs could fire two-hundred-round bursts routinely and without overheating If any of the guardsmen had made it across, it would have been a miracle.

  Hilton, the guard commander’s personal opponent, pictured in his mind what the guard commander was going through. Half your troops are married and, barring your alert company, home with their wives, aren’t they? And most of those are senior, no? Plus any of your officers that aren’t married or living with a girl are elsewhere, at a BOQ, right? So you’ve got an inherent chain of command break, with not too senior privates taking charge of squads, corporals leading platoons, and sergeants trying to command companies, don’t you? Your arms and ammunition are mostly locked up, and the Charge of Quarters or Staff Duty Officer is desperately trying to open the locks on the arms room doors, isn’t he? And somebody who isn’t even a supply clerk is hunting for the batteries for your night vision devices …or will be as soon as somebody notices they need batteries and aren’t stored with them in.

  Or maybe you’re the SDO, a junior lieutenant with no experience. No matter; first, you’re going to try to get them armed, while you try to figure out what you’re facing and what to do about us, while maybe desperately hoping someone senior shows up to take the burden off of you.

  Still, you’re an officer of Chavez’s personal guard and you weren’t hand-picked because you wouldn’t try, or if your political loyalty was anything less than fanatical. And you’re probably not stupid, even if inexperienced. So you’re not going to try the unsupported mad rush across the avenue; you’ve seen how that worked out. And you’re not going to try to come pouring out the doors, because you know that’s exactly what my machine guns are focusing on now. You might try to come east, around the Palacio Blanco, but you’ve seen our helicopters there and won’t want to get caught in the open of that parking lot.

  I’m guessing you send your first company to report “Ready to move” west, across the road past where we can see, with orders to outflank us. For the rest, those who take longer to get organized and armed, you’ve got to take the direct approach if you’re to have a chance, you think, to save Hugo. And of those, some, some of the second tier to report “ready,” you’re going to send to man the windows to beat our fire down.

  Which you can do, by the way, if Lava doesn’t frigging hurry up and get Chavez.

  JESUS! Hilton winced as a bullet from the barracks found a leg. Oh …GOD, that hurts. Shit, shit, shit. Come on, Lee, kill the bastard and order the evacuation!

  Trying to keep as low to the ground and as much behind his covering tree as possible, Hilton let his rifle fall from his grip and bent at the waist to inspect the damage. He couldn’t see anything much but his finger
s touched no arterial spray.

  Beats the alternative. Hilton’s hand sought out the combat dressing attached to his harness and pulled it out. The plastic he ripped off with his teeth before unfolding and pressing the thing to his leg.

  Unfortunately, at about that time, as he lifted himself slightly to get a little better angle, another bullet struck him on the shoulder where the ceramic plates didn’t cover him. That bullet lost some energy burrowing through the fibers of his armor, but not enough that it couldn’t penetrate the armor, his skin, smash into the bone of his shoulder, and then careen off to pass above his heart, through his brachiocephalic artery, and then through his right lung.

  The lung wound hardly mattered; Hilton was effectively dead already.

  Located right by where the turn off from Avenida Sucre, North, led to Urdaneta, east, Searles, nicknamed “Opto,” B Company’s sergeant major, heard von Ahlenfeld give “mission accomplished” and the order to begin the evacuation. He waited several seconds for Hilton to acknowledge, then sent across the company net, “Hey, where’s the fuck’s the CO?”

  Nobody had a clue.

  Ah, shit. Searles jumped up and ran, rifle in hand, to the northeast in the general direction he had last seen Hilton heading. He stopped about halfway to the road and took a knee behind as stout a tree as was to be found in the area. Let’s see …the place where there’s a gap where nobody is returning fire is …over there. He leapt again to his feet much more nimbly than one might expect of a man of more than five decades and, with bullets dogging every step, ran forward.

  He saw the still, twisted form on the ground in the green glow of his NOD’s. Flopping down beside the body, Searles felt for breathing and then for a pulse. Crap.

  “Lava, Opto. Hilton’s dead.”

  “Shit,” von Ahlenfeld answered. “We’ve got to get out of here. Can you evac the body? Can you do it while controlling the retrograde to the PZ?”

  “Maybe. I’ll try. Break, break. Bravo West, this is the sergeant major. The major’s down. It’s time to pull pitch. But it’s gonna be tricky …”

  As he spoke flames began rising from what looked to be inside the palace. Hurriedly, Searles took a Russian clone of a Claymore mine and a VP-13 seismic fuse, then connected them and set them out pointing to the north. He didn’t set the arming sequence and skedaddle until he saw the last of the men along Urdaneta had passed him. They, too, if they’d followed instructions, had left mines behind to discourage pursuit.

  The southern entrance was suddenly lit orange yellow as the spilt fuel from the Hip caught fire, flames torching the shattered remnants of the palm tree and licking at the exposed wooden beams holding up the tile roof. In the glow, reflecting off white stucco, Chavez’s cooling body had been laid out, spread-eagled, beside the doorway. Von Ahlenfeld’s orders were that there was to be no doubt in Venezuelan minds that their president was dead. His rifle was not in evidence, leaving the bloody corpse looked strangely and pathetically helpless.

  Von Ahlenfeld glanced down at the body and whispered:

  “‘Old man, you fought well, but you lost in the end.’”

  Hampson, with a body draped across his shoulders, slapped von Ahlenfeld’s back and said, “Last man’s out, sir Cruz’s party is controlling the evacuation.”

  Lava nodded and said, “Then let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  Bicentennial Plaza, Caracas, Venezuela

  Cruz watched as men dropped their armor at Konstantin’s feet as they entered the plaza area. There was maybe enough fuel to make it to internment. There certainly wasn’t an excess.

  “Cruz, Number Five. They’re pouring out of the barracks. I’m engaging.”

  “Roger,” he answered.

  “This is Four, ditto.”

  “Roger.”

  To his north and northeast, Cruz heard the double booms of rockets burning off their fuel in just over a second and then slamming into the ground to explode. A fair volume of screaming came right on the heels of that. From the east came the sail-ripping sound of a machine gun pod, joining the fray.

  Out on the plaza, itself, Cruz’s erstwhile engineer stood with arms outstretched and cone-topped lights gripped in his hands. Number Two guided in on the lights, came to a halt and began to settle to the ground. As soon as it was down, and well before it ceased bouncing, the former copilot began hustling, pushing, and generally moving people aboard. Some of those people were hobbling, others were being carried. It seemed that no one wasn’t either wounded or dead or helping carry someone who was.

  As soon as the copilot counted twenty-seven men and bodies aboard, he stopped the procession and ordered the helicopter off. It lifted in a choking swirl of dust then swung around to the south and west to cover the withdrawal as Four came in to load After that, it would turn approximately east and go far enough to leave some doubt in Venezuelan minds as to its ultimate direction before switching to northwest and a course for the Netherlands Antilles.

  “Three, you’re up next,” Cruz ordered.

  “Roger. Twenty seconds.”

  “Faster if …” Cruz stopped speaking, shocked by a fiery explosion blossoming out to the northeast, briefly lighting the plaza with its flames.

  “Five, Cruz? Five? Five?” Goddammit!

  “Hurry up, Three!”

  Seeing the aerial explosion, Hampson mentally checked off, Well, that’s three of eighty-seven we won’t have to worry about loading. I wonder what that’s going to do to the load plan. Nothing good, I’m sure.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  The time will come, when thou shalt lift thine eyes

  To watch a long-drawn battle in the skies.

  —Thomas Gray, “Luna Habitabilis” (1737)

  At Sea, Ninety-seven Kilometers Northwest of Caracas, Venezuela

  Praporschik Baluyev still hadn’t ordered the really amazingly large quantity of explosives the Bertram yacht carried to be dumped over the side.

  Maybe I should have, he thought, scanning the green-tinged skies to the southeast, but it’s easier to dump it at the last minute, if we ever must, than to try to shit it out of our asses if we need it but have already dumped it.

  The boat was pointed generally toward the Netherlands Antilles, with Kravchenko at the wheel. Litvinov sat beside Baluyev, in the other of the two fishing chairs, likewise scanning the horizon. Timur and Lada were down below, in the radio room. In theory they were listening on Second Battalion’s push, but in practice still trying to work out their problems. At this range, Second Battalion didn’t have much to say, anyway.

  Or maybe they already have, Baluyev mused, and are very quietly screwing. Very quietly.

  He pulled his eye from the scope and thought, Nah, there is no solution to their problems. Not given Tim’s nature and hers. He can’t understand why she won’t settle down with him. She can’t understand why it matters to him, what difference another dick or fifty make. Poor bastards.

  Baluyev couldn’t see a blessed thing, of course. No more could Litvinov. The curvature of the Earth blocked the Venezuelan coast at this range, while ships had been giving that coast a wide berth ever since the mines had gone in.

  “One good thing,” Litvinov said.

  “What’s that?”

  “With nothing on the horizon, the Hips should stand out in the thermals once they pop over.”

  “True enough.”

  Bicentennial Plaza, Caracas, Venezuela

  Three, once loaded, picked up and moved to a spot a bit to the east of Five’s smoking wreckage. It had no rockets left, and little ammunition in its gun pod. What it had, it contributed to the general effort as Four broke off from its action to set down on the plaza. When that was gone, and it soon was, the Hip swung around to give its engineer, playing door gunner, a chance to use his machine gun. The other helicopter still in play had done the same.

  Even with those two door guns, and reinforced with the seismically fused Russian Claymore clones, the Honor Guard was across the road and creepi
ng through the park and the ball field. The flash and boom of the cloned mines did a fair job of marking their progress.

  Von Ahlenfeld, Konstantin, and Hampson—his wounded man having been tossed aboard Three—formed a tight little perimeter at the western edge of the plaza, while Cruz hustled the last lift aboard. Venezuelan tracers sparked green, passing mostly overhead.

  In his radio’s earpiece, von Ahlenfeld heard Cruz say, “The next bus won’t be along for a couple of years, Lava. So if you guys don’t want to be late for your next appointment …”

  Von Ahlenfeld turned and, by the light of the now merrily flaming palace, saw Cruz standing on the ramp of the last Hip, beckoning them on.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of Dodge! Top, go!”

  Hampson sprang to his feet and began churning across the plaza to the waiting Hip. Behind him went Konstantin. Von Ahlenfeld leapt up next, just in time to see Hampson caught in a burst of machine gun fire that cut his legs from under him and spun him head over heels, backwards.

  Konstantin reached him first, going to one knee to examine the sergeant major as best he could under the flaring light.

  “He’s alive!” the Russian shouted to von Ahlenfeld. “But I don’t know by how much.”

  Lava, judging the position of the machine gun that had cut down his sergeant major turned and donated a spray in that general direction. He sincerely doubted that he hit anything but, Might ruin their aim for the next burst.

  “Can you carry him?”

  Without answering, Konstantin pulled Hampson up into a fireman’s carry. Then, staggering under the weight, the Russian made a slow trot for the Hip’s ramp. There, Cruz met him and helped him onto the helicopter, before assisting in lowering Hampson to the deck.