“And what you want to do, Mr. Ambassador,” Delchamps said, softly, “is pass Charley’s choppers off as just more government helicopters.”
“Taking care of that nice, sick old man and his wife,” Ambassador Lorimer said, smiling, then finishing his Sazarac. “Nothing to be concerned about by the indigenous personnel or the local police. The more activity here, I would suggest, Chief Inspector Ordóñez, the better. All Colonel Castillo would have to do is make sure that none of his helicopters are here when yours are. A matter of scheduling, it would seem….”
“And we could move all the fuel we’re going to need onto the estancia in the open,” Castillo thought aloud.
“The fuel to service the police helicopters will be brought to Shangri-La on Policía Nacional trucks,” Ordóñez offered.
“May I infer that this suggestion has been helpful?” Ambassador Lorimer asked.
“You have just saved our ass, Mr. Ambassador,” Castillo said, and then, suddenly serious, added: “And very possibly the lives of Special Agent Timmons and the two Argentine gendarmes those bastards are holding.”
Ambassador Lorimer locked eyes with Castillo a moment.
“If that’s true, Colonel…”
“It’s true, Mr. Ambassador.”
“I was about to say that would please me very much. I’m familiar with the philosophy that vengeance is the Lord’s. But I am a sinner, and I would very much like to think I did some harm to the people who took my son’s life.”
Castillo didn’t reply.
“And that being the case,” Lorimer went on, “don’t you think a small celebratory taste would be in order?”
“Yes, sir, I would indeed.”
[FOUR]
Estancia Shangri-La
Tacuarembó Province
República Oriental del Uruguay
0355 19 September 2005
When the radio went off—“Little Bo-Peep, Red Riding Hood One”—Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo, USA, wearing a dyed-black flight suit and puffing on a long, thin, nearly black cigar, was sitting at a somewhat unstable table. It was set up in a field about five hundred meters from the big house of Estancia Shangri-La and held a glowing Coleman lantern, two large thermos bottles of coffee, two insulated food containers, and the control console of an AFC communications system. Sipping coffee at the table were Chief Inspector José Ordóñez of the Uruguayan Policía Nacional, U.S. Ambassador (Ret.) Philippe Lorimer, U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Five Colin Leverette, and Corporal Lester Bradley, USMC.
“Answer them, Lester,” Castillo ordered as he glanced at the Huey—once glossy white but now looking tired and battered—fifty meters away that belonged to the Policía Nacional.
“Go, Red Riding Hood,” Corporal Bradley said into his microphone.
“We’re due east of you, on the deck. Estimate five minutes,” the voice said over the console speaker.
Bradley looked at Castillo for instructions.
“Acknowledged. No wind. Look for automotive headlights,” Castillo said.
“Acknowledged. No wind. Look for automotive headlights,” Bradley repeated into the microphone.
Chief Inspector Ordóñez stood up.
“I suppose I had best get back to Montevideo,” Ordóñez said.
Castillo stood up, too.
“That’s probably a good idea,” Castillo said.
He put out his hand.
“Thank you, José.”
“I realized just now why I really dislike you, Carlos,” Ordóñez said.
Castillo raised an eyebrow. “Why is that, José?”
“You are a corrupting influence, like Satan. When I heard that”—he gestured toward the sky, meaning he meant the radio exchange—“instead of being consumed by shame and remorse for having done what I know I should not have done, I realized I was smiling nearly as broadly as you were.”
“Not to worry,” Castillo said. “That’ll pass.”
Ordóñez nodded and started walking toward the Policía Nacional helicopter. Halfway there, just as the pilot started the engine—and the lights of half a dozen cars and pickup trucks came on—he turned and walked back to Castillo.
“Tell your people to be very careful with my helicopters,” he said.
“I’ll do that,” Castillo said.
Sixty seconds later, the Policía Nacional Huey broke ground. The sound of its rotor blades faded into the night.
Then the distinct sound of Huey rotors grew louder.
“I believe that is our bird coming in, sir,” Corporal Bradley said.
“You’re probably right, Lester,” Castillo agreed.
Sixty seconds later, a Huey appeared out of the pitch dark, surprising everybody even though it had been expected.
The helicopter displayed no navigation lights; even the Grimes light on top of the fuselage had not been illuminated. The Huey quickly settled to the ground, and the moment it did, the headlights of the vehicles illuminating the field went dark.
And sixty seconds after that, Colonel Jacob Torine, USAF, and U.S. Army Major Robert Ward, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment—both wearing dyed-black insignia-less flight suits like Castillo’s—walked up to the table.
Ward came to attention and saluted.
“Good evening, sir,” he said. “I hope that is a cattle-free field. I would really hate to get bullshit all over my rudder pedals.”
“And I hope you have not been letting that bluesuit fly one of my choppers.”
“Screw you, Colonel,” Torine said. “I say that with affection and sincerity.”
“How’d it go?” Castillo asked.
“Getting off the Gipper was a bit of a problem,” Torine said. “The Navy has a rule that they want to know where aircraft leaving their ships are going, and we of course did not wish to share that information with them.”
“What did you do?”
“I told them the admiral would tell him after we were gone.”
“Does he know?”
“No.”
“Everybody got off all right?”
“At thirty-minute intervals.”
“Which means we have to get you fueled and out of here right now,” Castillo said. “Mr. Leverette—you know each other, right, Bob?”
“Hey, Colin,” Ward said. “How are you?”
“My father just went to jail, and my mother just broke both of her legs. How about you?”
“And this,” Castillo went on, “excuse me, sir, is Ambassador Lorimer.”
“I have been waiting for the opportunity to say this,” the ambassador said. “Welcome to Shangri-La, gentlemen. There’s coffee and sandwiches. Please help yourself.”
“As I was saying,” Castillo went on, “Mr. Leverette has been checked out on the fuel truck.”
“Charley, did you steal a police fuel truck?” Ward asked.
“I borrowed it.”
“You do have that reputation for borrowing things,” Ward said.
“I’ll try for the third time to finish this sentence,” Castillo said. “Mr. Leverette has been checked out on the fuel truck and has volunteered—”
“My crew chief would rather do that himself, Colonel, thank you very much just the same.”
“Drive it over to the chopper, will you, please, Colin?” Castillo said.
“Carefully, please, Colin,” Ward said. “Keeping in mind my crew chief test-fired his Gatling gun on the way here, burning six hundred rounds a minute.”
“I thought it was three thousand RPM,” Castillo said.
“The six-barrel M134D,” Corporal Lester Bradley automatically recited, “is capable of firing per-minute fixed rates of three thousand or four thousand rounds of 7.65mm NATO ammunition.” He paused. “At three thousand RPM, that’s an extreme shot density of fifty rounds each second, the dense grouping designed to quickly suppress multiple targets simultaneously.”
“Well,” Castillo said after a moment, “we’ve heard from the Marine Corps…”
�
��Lester, you’re right,” Ward said. “And our weapons are tweaked for six-hundred-RPM test firings. Conserves ammo.”
“Charley,” Torine said, “why were you talking in tongues on the radio?”
“I didn’t know if your pal the admiral might be listening,” Castillo said. “Turns out we have a problem in Asunción. Yung found out the CIA station chief is on the bad guy’s payroll. I couldn’t take the chance the admiral—who I’m convinced is talking back-channel to at least one Pentagon admiral—would pass on anything that might wind up in Langley where another rotten apple would pass it on to Asunción.”
“Jesus Christ, Charley!” Torine said, shocked. “That’s one hell of an accusation. You sure?”
“Unfortunately. A long story. Delchamps will bring you up to speed when you’re at Nuestra Pequeña Casa.”
“‘Our Little House’? What’s that?” Major Ward asked.
“A safe house, outside Buenos Aires. Your next stop. We’re going to hide the birds there during the day and finish the ferry operation as soon as it gets dark tonight. And we’ll give you the basic plan during the day. We have some really interesting satellite stuff.”
“Finish the ferry operation how? And where to?” Ward asked.
Castillo looked at his watch. He didn’t want to get into this now, but on the other hand, Ward had a right to know, and if he told him “later,” Ward would be annoyed.
“The next leg is to Pilar. It’s a little bit out of the way, but we’re working with an Argentine cop on this, specifically a gendarmerie comandante named Duffy, and that’s where he is. He’s arranged fuel to be at a couple of the Argentine Polo Association’s polo fields, ones sort of closed down for the day.
“Either Duffy’s people—or ours—will take the crews to the safe house, where we can make the first operation briefing and get them something to eat and some rest.
“As soon as it’s dark, the choppers—each having taken aboard a couple of gendarmes; in case you have to land someplace you hadn’t planned, they’ll make you legitimate—will fly separate routes to fields in the boonies for refueling. You’ll get the coordinates at the briefing. There are redundant fields in case anything goes wrong.
“You’ll wind up at a field in Argentina several miles from the Paraguay River and about ten miles from the target. This place has got a couple of big barns where we can conceal the Hueys and the shooters. The shooters are already moving there in private cars and trucks—mostly trucks—and again with a gendarme or two aboard in case they get stopped.
“As soon as everybody’s assembled, and the choppers checked and fueled, we’ll make the assault.”
“No dry run?”
“No. That would attract too much attention, and you know as well as I do, Bob, that things happen—like dumping birds—during dry runs. You guys have done this sort of thing before; I’m not worried about that.”
Ward nodded.
“What we’re going to do,” Castillo went on, “is make a simultaneous approach to the target. Three birds will take out the two generators, what we think is the main generator and its spare, and their radio. Duffy’s gendarmes will cut the telephone and power lines at the same time.
“Three of the birds will use suppressing fire and get ready to put their shooters on the ground if necessary, while the fourth bird with a couple of shooters will land and grab the DEA guy and two gendarmes who these nice people have chained to a pole and, we believe, are keeping them doped up with some drug.”
“You’ve located them?”
“Master Sergeant Ludwicz…you know him?”
“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 a
t 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 Pequeña 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 Pequeña 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.”
The Shooters Page 52