The shooters pa-4

by W. E. B Griffin

  "Skinhead."

  Castillo nodded. "Skinhead penetrated this place and got a positive visual."

  "So you know where they are?"

  Castillo nodded again, then said, "Unless they're moved, which will probably happen. The fourth bird will put two shooters, plus an ex-Green Beret and a cop who both know the DEA guy-his name is Timmons-on the ground, grab them, put them on the chopper, whereupon the chopper will haul ass. The quicker we're in and out, the better."

  "An ex-Green Beret and a cop? Where did they come from?"

  "The ex-Green Beret is called Pegleg because one of them is titanium."

  "Lorimer?"

  "You know him?"

  "Of him."

  "Good man. And the cop, he's a detective sergeant, is the DEA guy's brother-in-law."

  "You brought a cop in on this?"

  "It was not my idea. But I don't know what shape the DEA guy is going to be in, and I don't want to have to fight with him to get him into the chopper, so maybe he'll be useful as a friendly face.

  Major Ward did not look convinced.

  "I know, I know," Castillo said. "Best scenario, we get them aboard the chopper and haul ass without having to put the shooters on the ground."

  "Back to the field across the river?"

  "The bird evacing the DEA guy will go to the airport at Formosa-a hundred clicks from the target-where the Gulfstream will be waiting. And there'll be medics, to let Torine know if it's safe for the DEA guy to fly, first to Uruguay and then home."

  "Why Uruguay?"

  "Because the Uruguayan cops get the choppers when we're done with them. The Gulfstream will also take all the pilots home."

  "Where are you going to be while all this is going on?"

  "I'll be flying the bird that lands to get the DEA guy."

  Ward did not respond to that.

  "Not to worry, Bob," Colin Leverette said, coming into the light of the Coleman lamp. "I'll be with him to make sure he doesn't do something stupid."

  "Where did that idea come from?" Castillo asked. "For that matter, where the hell did you come from? I thought you were pumping fuel."

  "My offer to be of assistance was declined," Leverette said. "Somewhat rudely, I thought."

  "Your offer to be of assistance to me is herewith politely declined, Colin. I need you to stay with the ambassador."

  "Anticipating what you were planning for me, I had Vic D'Alessando send the best available shooters from the stockade down here with the ambassador."

  "I'll be fine, Colonel," Ambassador Lorimer said. "There are all sorts of local police, as well." He paused and added, "What is that phrase from Tactics 101? I think you've been outflanked by Colin, Colonel."

  "Colonel," Leverette added, "you didn't really expect me to wave a tearful bye-bye while you and Jack Davidson flew off to do battle with the forces of evil, did you?"

  Castillo was silent. Then he shook his head in an exaggerated fashion.

  "I give up," he said.

  "Colonel, what's the worst scenario?" Ward asked.

  Castillo inhaled deeply, exhaled audibly, and said, "These people took out two of Comandante Duffy's gendarmes. He wants to leave bodies all over to make the point they shouldn't have done this. I can't stop him-frankly, I'm not sure I blame him-but I can't afford to get us involved in anything like that.

  "So, worst scenario is that we get in a firefight on the ground. That would take time. I think Duffy's men are going to be in the compound where Timmons is within five minutes of the time we get there. I want to be gone by then, long before there's any chance of us taking fire-or casualties."

  There came the sound of the Huey's engine starting.

  "Well, Bob, I think you'd better take this old Air Force type to the house," Castillo said. "He's had enough excitement for one day."

  "What I think we need, Colin, is a kinder, gentler commander," Colonel Torine said.

  Almost exactly two hours later, at 0620, Castillo and Leverette looked out the side door of Red Riding Hood Four-around the Gatling gun-as the aircraft lifted off. They waved good-bye to Ambassador Lorimer, who was standing by the table in the field with the two next best available shooters from the stockade at his side.

  XV

  [ONE]

  Estancia San Patricio

  Near Clorinda

  Formosa Province, Argentina 0355 21 September 2005 Castillo had an uneasy feeling that things were going too well, too smoothly.

  Even the damn TVs came through.

  All four of them. And in working order.

  They were the sixty-four-inch flat-screen LCD television monitors from the quincho at Nuestra Pequena Casa. He had mentioned idly to Comandante Duffy that it was a pity they wouldn't have one of them at what Edgar Delchamps had dubbed the Cathedral-"as in Saint Patrick's Cathedral"-meaning the huge warehouse buildings at Estancia San Patricio.

  "They'd sure make the final briefing a lot easier," Castillo had said.

  "Not a problem," Duffy said. "I'll have one of them there in the morning. Maybe we should send two, to be sure."

  "Hell, take all of them. They're not going to do us any good here in the quincho."

  And if we're really lucky, he'd thought, maybe more than one will survive getting trucked over a thousand clicks of bumpy provincial roads.

  Thirty minutes later, one of the seized trucks from Duffy's combination headquarters-garage-warehouse had arrived at Nuestra Pequena Casa. The cargo area of the truck was half filled with mattresses.

  And the next day-yesterday, at lunchtime-when Castillo arrived at the Cathedral with Delchamps, Lester, Leverette, and Max in a confiscated Mercedes SUV, Sergeant Major Jack Davidson had all four of the screens up and running, displaying the latest satellite updates.

  "This is great, Jack, but now everybody knows more than they should," Castillo said.

  "Well, surprising me not a little, Duffy didn't argue with me when I told him that we were in the lockdown stage of the operation and that nobody leaves the Cathedral once they come in."

  "You're a good man, Jack. Don't pay any attention to what people are always saying about you."

  Comandante Liam Duffy, now wearing what was apparently the Gendarmeria Nacional uniform for going to war-camouflage shirt and trousers, sort of jump boots, and web equipment that seemed designed primarily to support many ammunition magazines-walked up to Castillo, pointed at his wristwatch, and raised his eyebrows in question.

  "Yeah, Liam," Castillo said. "It's about time."

  Duffy bellowed a name.

  An enormous gendarme with a sleeve full of chevrons appeared, came to attention before Duffy, and announced that he was at his orders.

  "Form the men!" Duffy ordered, loudly.

  The gendarme bellowed something not quite intelligible but what apparently was the gendarme command to come to attention.

  All the gendarmes popped to their feet, stamped their feet in the British manner, and stood rigidly at attention.

  Comandante Duffy grandly gestured for Castillo to precede him to the speaker's platform: the cargo bay of yet another confiscated vehicle pressed into service.

  More than a few of the Americans in the room-two dozen Delta Force shooters and the crews of the Hueys-obviously found this military precision amusing. Perhaps even ludicrous.

  Shit, the last thing I need is for the gendarmes to think the gringos are laughing at them.

  But it's too late now for the speech about respecting the customs of your brothers-in-arms.

  Castillo started to walk toward the pickup truck.

  Chief Warrant Officer Five Colin Leverette put his hand on Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo's arm, stopping him.

  Leverette then screamed or shouted or bellowed, "On your feet, you candy-asses!"

  This caught the attention of the Americans.

  But no one moved.

  Leverette then announced, at equal volume: "I will personally castrate any one of you candy-asses not standing tall by the time I get to the tr
uck!"

  Then, politely, he said to Castillo, "With your permission, sir?" and marched erectly toward the pickup truck, loudly and rapidly repeating "Up! Up! Up!" until he got there.

  By then the Americans understood what was going on and had gotten to their feet.

  Leverette jumped nimbly into the bed of the pickup, popped to rigid attention, and bellowed, "Assault force, atten-hut!"

  The shooters and the fliers stood at rigid attention.

  "Sir!" Leverette bellowed as he saluted. "Your assault force is formed!"

  By then even the assault force commander understood what was going on.

  Lieutenant Colonel Castillo marched across the Cathedral to the truck, jumped nimbly into the cargo area, put his hands on his hips, and examined his force as if he didn't like what he saw.

  He turned to Leverette, who was still holding his salute.

  "Very well," he said, quite loudly. "Carry on, Mr. Leverette."

  "Yes, sir!" Leverette bellowed, then ordered the men, "At-ease!"

  Leverette turned back to face Castillo. Neither the assault force nor the gendarmes could see his face. And they could not hear him as he softly said, "And to think you didn't want me to come…"

  "I've never thought pep talks did much good," Castillo said loudly to the assault force and gendarmes. "So I'm not going to give one. And if there's anybody out there who doesn't know what he's supposed to do and when he's supposed to do it, he's out of luck. There's no time for that now.

  "The only things I am going to say, and I'm sure Comandante Duffy agrees with me, is that the priority of this mission-above all else-is to get our people back from these hijos de puta. And to do that, we have to follow the schedule.

  "This is one of those situations where one man, acting a minute too soon or a minute too late, can screw up the whole operation. Don't jump the gun! That'll get people-almost certainly the people we're going after, but members of the assault team as well-killed.

  "And when your time comes to take action, don't hesitate. Hesitation will get people killed, too!

  "And that's all I have."

  Castillo looked down at Duffy, who stood beside the truck.

  "Comandante?"

  Comandante Duffy put his hands on the waist of a slight man in a gendarme uniform and hoisted him into the back of the pickup.

  What the hell?

  The gendarmes bowed their heads, and the slight man then invoked a lengthy, somewhat flowery blessing of the Deity upon the noble mission they were about to undertake.

  It was only after everyone raised their heads that Castillo saw the clerical collar under the slight man's camouflage shirt.

  Max sensed that something was going on that he was not going to be part of, but didn't protest when Castillo put him in the back of the Mercedes SUV and firmly lashed his leash to a metal loop in the floor. Delchamps would drive the truck, and Max, to the airfield at Formosa, where Torine and Miller had taken the Gulfstream.

  Castillo had planned to send Lester Bradley with Torine and Max, but the piteous look in Bradley's eyes when he was told of this was even more piteous than the look in Max's eyes, and Castillo's resolve melted.

  "Cover my back, Lester, and that's all," Castillo ordered.

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  Leverette intercepted Castillo and Bradley as they walked toward Big Bad Wolf, its rotor blades already turning. Lorimer, Mullroney, and two shooters were getting situated inside.

  "Go get aboard, Lester," Leverette ordered. "I need a word with the colonel. And don't shoot anything until I tell you."

  When Bradley was out of earshot, Castillo said, "Now what, Colin?"

  "Would the colonel accept some friendly advice?"

  "Not right now, thank you just the same, Mr. Leverette. I have a lot on my mind."

  "Thank you, sir. How long has it been since the colonel has been referred to as Hotshot Charley, the Boy Wonder?"

  "Meaning what?"

  "May I remind the colonel that he is now a colonel? And that colonels-even light colonels, sir-are supposed to keep their minds free to make command decisions? Not drive helicopters."

  Castillo stared at Leverette.

  "Let the kid drive, Charley. He's good. I've been around the block with him, and the other kid, before."

  Castillo glanced at the Huey, then looked back at Leverette.

  "If the old man's memory serves, you've been around the block with me once or twice, too, Colin. Some people thought I was pretty good at this sort of thing."

  "You were. That was then, this is now." He paused. "Let the kids drive, Charley."

  "Fuck you, Colin," Castillo said, and walked quickly toward Big Bad Wolf.

  The pilot, a young captain, was holding open the pilot's door.

  "Where would like me to ride, sir?"

  "Probably there would be a good idea," Colonel Castillo said, pointing to the pilot seat. "That's where they keep the handles and levers and all that aircraft crap."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Big Bad Wolf light on the skids."

  "Big Bad Wolf off."

  "Big Bad Wolf. Commo check."

  "One."

  "Two."

  "Three."

  "Big Bad Wolf. M-Minute in ten. Engage computer on my bong."

  "Bong."

  This was far from the first time Castillo had flown an assault mission using the technique known informally as "flying the needles." But it would be the first when he would not actually be flying from the pilot's seat of one-usually the lead-helicopter.

  I'm not flying. The "kids" are.

  Colin was right about that. I haven't flown a Huey for a long time.

  I am no longer Hotshot Charley, the Boy Wonder.

  This is no time for me to fuck it up by thinking I am.

  Castillo knew that the destination coordinates and the desired time of arrival-in this case, six hundred seconds from his bong setting order-had been all fed into computers aboard the Hueys. The computers would make the necessary computations and convert them to signals that activated indicator pointers-the "needles"-on the compass, the radar altimeter, and the ground speed indicator.

  By keeping each helicopter's compass and its altitude and ground speed indicator's pointers lined up precisely with the computer-generated data-continuously making adjustments en route-as many as ten helicopters can arrive simultaneously (within two to three seconds) on target from several directions.

  In our case-Big Bad Wolf and Red Riding Hood One, Two, and Three-from three different directions.

  Making this damned difficult and complicated, and requiring pilots of extraordinary skill and great experience to carry it off.

  And these "kids"-these Army aviators of the 160th-are the world's best damn chopper jockeys.

  At M-Minute less three seconds, Red Riding Hood One popped up from its nap of the earth altitude east of the target and rose to one hundred feet above the ground.

  There were faint lights visible within the compound beneath Red Riding Hood One.

  At M-Minute, what looked like an orange ribbon flashed down to the ground from the opened side door of the helicopter. It lasted about ten seconds, and then Red Riding Hood One made a steep turn and left the area.

  The orange ribbon had come from a Dillon Aero M134D 7.62mm "weapon system" mounted on a pintle in the helicopter. This weapon is patterned after the Gatling gun, a multiple-barrel weapon that was developed just in time for Private Tiffany of the jewelry firm Tiffany amp; Company and of the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, to buy several from the Colt people with his own money and in 1899 take them to Cuba, where he put them to use assisting Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt in chasing the Spaniards off San Juan Hill.

  The M134D-with six rotating barrels like the original Gatling, but ones electrically powered rather than hand-cranked-on Red Riding Hood One was fed by a 4,400-round magazine that could empty in just over sixty seconds.

  In the ten seconds the weapon did fire, it sent from Red Riding Hood
One almost seven hundred 168-grain bullets into a corrugated steel shed that contained a nearly new Cummins diesel-powered one-hundred-fifty-kilowatt generator. This caused the generator to malfunction-and the lights in the compound to go black.

  A moment later, the diesel fuel in the tank behind the shed burst into flame.

  Several moments after that, the electric lights of the compound flickered back on as an automatic system fired up the backup generator, an identical Cummins.

  This coincided with the arrival of Red Riding Hood Two from the north at M-Minute plus five seconds.

  And again there was an orange ribbon coming from the sky.

  And again somewhere around seven hundred bullets flowed down, these striking the shed housing the backup generator-and causing the generator to malfunction, its fuel supply to ignite, and the lights in the compound to go out again.

  As Red Riding Hood Two left the immediate area, Red Riding Hood Three and Big Bad Wolf appeared from the south.

  Red Riding Hood was going to go in as low as possible to the ground and train its M134D on the corrugated steel building that the satellite imagery interpreters believed to be the compound headquarters-lots of people and a rather powerful shortwave radio station had been detected-and a motor pool behind that building.

  Big Bad Wolf was going to land in the compound as soon as Red Riding Hood Three fired at the headquarters building, then off-load three shooters. The shooters would rush to the pole where DEA Special Agent Timmons and the two gendarmes had been chained, free them, and load them onto Big Bad Wolf, which would then immediately take off, under cover of Red Riding Hood One and Two, which by then would have returned to lay down covering fire.

  Red Riding Hood Three by then would be seeing what it could do to facilitate the passage of the gendarmes from the highway to the compound, conducting what is known as "reconnaissance by fire."

  Everything went as planned until Red Riding Hood Three picked up a little altitude to give it a better shot at the motor pool.

  The pilot of Big Bad Wolf, the copilot, and Castillo-who was kneeling on the deck just behind them-almost simultaneously said, "Oh, shit!"

  "Fuck, he hit a wire," the copilot said. "It cut the fucking blade!"

  Red Riding Hood Three, which was tilted to the left, straightened out for a moment, looked as if it was trying to turn, then tilted back left, and was almost upside down when it crashed into the motor pool.