by Bob Blanton
Chapter 22
The Guatemalan Solution
“I just got off the phone with the President of Guatemala,” Samantha said as she walked into Marc’s office.
Marc nodded his head and waited for her to continue.
“He is asking us to have Kal go down to Victor’s ranch and clean out all his thugs and arrest him,” Samantha said.
“And why would we do that?”
“He says he wants to announce that he has created a special unit of their police to handle these kinds of issues,” Samantha said. “He wants to take credit for the operation in Guatemala City.”
“I’m still not sure I see a good reason for us to do this,” Marc said. “Let’s get Kal on the line and get his input.”
“What’s up?” Kal asked as he linked into the video conference that Marc set up.
“Sam has a request from the President of Guatemala,” Marc said.
“What does he want?” Kal asked.
“He would like you to go to Victor’s ranch and clean house,” Samantha said.
“He would, would he?” Kal said. “I know my team would love to do it.”
“Why?” Marc asked.
“Hey, about twenty percent are from Guatemala or have relatives here,” Kal said. “And nobody likes to deal with a snake and leave it with its head still attached.”
“He would also like to claim credit,” Samantha said.
“How’s he going to do that?” Kal asked.
“He’s going to tell the people he’s formed a special squad from the military to deal with the drug cartels,” Samantha said. “He hinted that he’d like us to help train his people.”
“That would give us the training base we want,” Kal said. “And a few missions once in a while would be a good way to keep the troops sharp.”
“You two figure out what you want to do,” Marc said. “I can support either decision.”
“Okay, Sam, I’ll do a recon on the ranch and come up with a plan. We can review it and decide if we should move forward.”
“Okay, and I’ll chat with the president about a permanent training facility,” Samantha said.
◆ ◆ ◆
“Catie, we need to drop a couple of surveillance probes over Victor’s ranch, can you take care of that?” Kal asked.
“Sure,” Catie said. “I’ll show the pilots how to attach the probes; we should add that to their training. We haven’t done that since the Carl Vinson thing.” Catie was referring to the time they had launched probes onto the USS Carl Vinson in order to catch Admiral Morris and the president conspiring to invade Delphi City.
“That’d be great, never pass up a teaching moment,” Kal said.
“After that, would it be okay if I went back to Delphi City?” Catie asked. “I’ve got a couple of projects that need attention.”
“Not exciting enough for you out here?” Kal asked.
“Not really,” Catie said. “I can stay if you think I should.”
“You do know that most of our people don’t get to pick their assignments.”
“But I’m a specialist,” Catie said with a bit of consternation. “I’ve been training Elise on the Oryx; she should be able to handle it now.”
“I’m sure she can,” Kal said. “What are you working on back at Delphi City?”
“I’m in the middle of the design for the new airliner,” Catie said. “I’ve been managing it remotely for the last three weeks.”
“Oh, right, you went off to place the Asteroid Explorers.”
“Don’t say it that way!”
“Why not, it’s true,” Kal said. “You always jump at the chance to be the first to do something. You gravitate to the exciting jobs.”
“But I help wherever you guys ask me to,” Catie pleaded her case. She knew Kal was right but didn’t want to admit she was being selfish.
“It’s okay, just wanted to point out that you’re not twelve anymore,” Kal said. “Everybody expected it of you then; now it might not go over as well.”
“You mean I have to quit playing the little girl card?” Catie said.
“I think so, especially now that it can look like the princess card.”
Catie grimaced at that, “Ohh, I guess that’s right. Daddy said it was going to mess up my life as much as his.”
“Oh, don’t complain too much, it’s hard for us mere commoners to sympathize,” Kal said while giving Catie a playful thump on the back of her head. “Oops, sorry, not supposed to touch royalty.”
Catie punched him on the shoulder as hard as she could. “Don’t you go treating me like a princess!”
“I won’t, now get out there and deploy my probes, I’ve got a mission to plan.”
“Yes, sir!”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Where are we?” Samantha asked Kal after she connected with his Comm.
“I’ve got two surveillance probes over the ranch, and three people in the town collecting intel,” Kal said. “It seems Victor was shocked at the events here in Guatemala City. He’s gathered most of his men around him at the ranch, and even recruited more.”
“How many men does he have?”
“He’s got three hundred of his own men that he’s pulled back to the ranch, and he’s recruited another two hundred from the local population. The logistics of supporting that many men has to be killing him,” Kal answered.
“The president has been leaking that he has a secret army that is going to go after Victor and his crew,” Samantha said. “He’s holding off from doing a press conference about Guatemala City; he says the rumors will work better.”
“Well, it’s working,” Kal said. “The president has gotten Victor to gathers all his eggs in one basket.”
“You sound like you’re going to take the mission,” Samantha said.
“I think we should. Maybe it’ll help establish a more effective rule of law here in Guatemala,” Kal said. “Right now, the police are just dealing with petty crime, too much of the real crime is entangled with the cartels, and they don’t dare poke that hornet’s nest.”
“Okay, I’ll tell the president. He’ll need to send someone from the ministry of justice to serve the warrant and arrest Victor,” Samantha said.
“Do you think he plans to go after all the cartels?” Kal asked.
“No, but he needs them to know he can go after them. He can’t afford the level of lawlessness that would result from having no organization controlling the crime. But he needs them to rein in their own people,” Samantha explained.
“The only real solution is to legalize opium,” Kal said. “With the land down here yielding four harvests a year, there’s too much money involved. Someone is going to find a way to cash in.”
“I’m not sure he’s willing to go that far,” Samantha said.
“Why not? The treatment that Dr. Metra has come up with cures the addiction in three days.”
“But some people don’t want to be cured, and you still have deaths that occur before they have a chance to come to their senses.”
“I’ll get things ready here,” Kal said. “We’ll want that warrant in a few days.”
“Okay,” Samantha said. “One more thing, Kal. I don’t want Catie directly involved in any killing. She still too young to carry that burden.”
“She had to carry it against the Paraxeans.”
“It’s different when they’re shooting at you, but flying a jet against targets on the ground is too much.”
“Don’t worry, she’ll be flying my command post,” Kal said. “She’s still our little girl, and we’ll both be back in time for her birthday party.”
Friday, Nov 20th – 0800 GMT
“Are we ready?” Kal asked.
“Yes, sir,” Catie replied. Her spirits seemed to be improved from the day before.
“Do you think they know we’re coming?” Barry asked.
“After Catie blew up their helicopter this morning, I certainly hope so,” Kal said.
“They
shot at us after the minister’s guy demanded Victor’s surrender,” Catie said. Catie had hovered the Fox, she had borrowed for the mission, over the ranch house while the representative of the public prosecutor’s office used the PA system on the Fox to read the warrant for Victor Sorcaño’s arrest.
“That wasn’t very nice of them. Did the helicopter make a nice fireball?” Barry asked.
“Yes, it must have had a full load of fuel,” Catie said. “It went up like a Roman torch.”
As a concession to Catie having to fly the Oryx during the assault on Victor’s ranch, Kal had let her fly the mission to take out Victor’s helicopter. He’d found that blowing something up would always raise the spirits of any soldier when they were frustrated at not being allowed on the front line.
“Then let’s go give them something else to think about,” Kal said.
Catie flew them to the south road behind the ranch, where they made a very visible show of disembarking fifty Marines. They then flew to the north, where they made an equally obvious show of landing another fifty Marines. This effectively isolated the ranch since it was in a valley with very rough terrain for sides.
“Okay, now let’s go shoot up some cars,” Kal said. He had Ramsey and three other snipers on the now virtually empty Oryx.
“Oorah,” Ramsey said as she carried her sniper rifle to the back end of the Oryx.
Catie left the cargo gate down as she lifted the Oryx back into the sky. They were headed to a field just east of the main house where there were about forty trucks and SUVs parked.
“Catie, go ahead and link in with Ramsey so she can tell you how she wants the Oryx positioned. Also, tie into the camera feed from the back; you can use that to line her team up with the trucks,” Kal instructed.
“Why do I get to tie into the feeds this time?” Catie asked. It was a big change from the mission over Guatemala City, where he only let her tie into his channel.
“No friendlies on the ground. We probably won’t even get any return fire, so less potential confusion,” Kal said. “And I know you like a good show.”
“Thanks. We’re lined up west of the field now,” Catie said. “Ramsey, is the altitude good?”
“I like it, one-thousand-meter shots, just perfect,” Mariana Ramsey said. “Are we weapons-free?”
“You’re weapons-free,” Kal said. “Light ‘em up!”
For the next twenty minutes, Catie enjoyed the fireworks as Ramsey and her team targeted the gas tanks of the vehicles with incendiary rounds from their M40 sniper rifles.
“Sit rep,” Kal barked over the shared Comm channel.
“We’ve got approximately thirty hostiles here at the front gate,” Barry reported. “They’ve got six vehicles we’d like you to take care of.”
“Wilco,” Kal said. “Emilio?”
“We have approximately forty hostiles back here. They have eight vehicles, so when you get done up there, you could come on back here and punch ‘em out.”
“Wilco, Emilio, we’ll take care of you first,” Kal said.
Catie was already heading to the back gate of the ranch by the time Kal had finished his call. She could see the vehicles spread out along a three-hundred-meter stretch of flat open land that bordered the fence, about six hundred meters back from it.
“Catie, line us up on the center group,” Kal ordered.
“Wilco,” Catie replied as she turned the Oryx around so that its cargo door faced the center group and the Oryx was lined up with the dirt road that went toward the ranch house. There were three large SUVs forming a wedge across the road, blocking anyone from traveling down it.
“Perfect, hold there,” Ramsey said.
“Roger,” Catie replied. She watched as Ramsey and her team quickly took out the three vehicles. The incendiary rounds punctured the vehicles’ gas tanks, causing them to explode.
“Hold here and just rotate us to the right,” Ramsey said.
Catie saw three more SUVs in a loose group. The men who had been sitting in or standing around the vehicles were running away, creating as much distance as they could between them and the vehicles. Ramsey’s team made quick work of the vehicles.
“Kal, do you want us to take out the hostiles?” Ramsey asked.
“No,” Kal replied. “Let’s give them a chance to surrender or run away before we start shooting them. No reason to get their dander up yet.”
“Roger, Catie, rotate us to the left; line up on that last group,” Ramsey ordered.
“Roger,” Catie said as she started rotating the Oryx to the left.
“Hold,” Ramsey ordered, and two more explosions rocked the area as Ramsey’s team took out the last two SUVs.
They moved to the north and the main entrance and quickly took out the six vehicles there. The surveillance drones had observed each of the entrances being reinforced after Catie blew up the helicopter. Apparently, Victor didn’t want to turn himself in.
Friday, Nov 20th – 1000 CST
“We have vehicles coming up the road,” Emilio reported.
“They’re the Guatemalan National Police,” Kal said. “They should be coming up the front side as well.”
“Yes, we see them as well,” Barry reported. “They’re bringing quite a few vans. They must be assuming we’ll be taking prisoners.”
“We should,” Kal said. “Especially the recent hires from the local area. They’re not looking at that much prison time.”
“Here they come,” Ramsey said.
Catie and Kal immediately looked at the display from the drone over the ranch house. Four Humvees were exiting the big barn behind the house.
“Damn, they have M2s mounted on those things,” Ramsey said.
“Only the best from U.S. foreign aid,” Barry said. “How many men are coming with them?”
“We see about fifteen men with each vehicle,” Ramsey said. “You can view it on channel four on your HUD.”
“Where are the rest of their men?” Catie asked. “I thought he had over five hundred up here.”
“There are about one hundred in that barn and another one hundred in a bunker behind the house,” Kal said. “It looks like there are about twenty in the house; I think the others are spread out over the ranch.”
“They’re setting up about one hundred meters from the house,” Ramsey reported. “One Humvee on each corner.”
“Let’s give them some more time, maybe they’ll bunch up for us,” Kal said.
“Catie, how would you suggest we take out those Humvees?” Kal asked. “I really don’t want to dedicate four Foxes.”
“Are you trying to take them out simultaneously?” Catie asked. “One Fox could easily handle them otherwise.”
“As close to simultaneous as possible.”
“Then use two Foxes; each one can take out two; just do a straight run across the corner, getting the two that line up,” Catie said.
“I concur,” Commander Vislosky said. He was the Lt. Commander in charge of the Foxes and didn’t seem too pleased that Kal was consulting Catie instead of him.
“Thank you, Commander,” Kal said. “Then you have one Fox left for each of the ranch entrances where they’ve stationed their men.”
“Correct, we can time it to hit all those targets at the same time. Plasma cannons will make short work of them. We’ll then come to a hover to support your men as they infiltrate the ranch.”
“Okay, plan on executing that in one hour,” Kal said.
“Wilco,” the commander replied.
Friday, Nov 20th – 1100 CST
“Commander Vislosky, you are clear to engage,” Kal announced.
Catie watched as four Foxes streaked across the sky. The Oryx was positioned above and to the south of the ranch house. Two Foxes cut a path across two Humvees each, and the associated hostiles camped out next to them. The pilots slowed to approximately one hundred kph, using their VTO capability to slow below stall speed in order to maximize their time over the target. They engaged their plasma ca
nnons and swept an area thirty meters wide, vaporizing everything in their path. After they flew off, there was only a twenty-meter trench where the Humvees and men had been. Catie had to swallow the bile that filled her throat as she realized what had happened to over eighty hostiles in a matter of seconds.
The other two Foxes had wreaked the same destruction at the two gates to the ranch eliminating over one hundred additional hostiles that had taken up position to counter the impending incursion by Kal’s men and the Guatemalan National Police.
“We’re clear,” Commander Vislosky announced.
“Thank you,” Kal said. “Teams Bravo and Delta, advance!”
Barry and his team advanced from the front gate, covered by one of Commander Vislosky’s Foxes while a second Fox hovered over the remainder of his platoon that was still holding position at the gate.
Emilio’s team advanced from the rear gate, very happy to see the Fox hovering over them as they moved. They had a surveillance drone on each flank to provide coverage, while the Fox streamed video of the forward view. All the men had donned full battle armor, with motorcycle-like helmets that protected their heads. The armor was heavy, not as heavy as what most of them had worn in Iraq or Afghanistan, but when it could stop a bullet from an M4 or AK47, you didn’t complain about the weight. A small respirator circulated air through the helmet, while superconductors carried the heat of their bodies out to the exterior of the suit, where it radiated into the surrounding air keeping them cool as they climbed the road toward the ranch house.
“Grenade!” the alarm sounded in each Marine’s HUD, as the AI monitoring the surveillance feed detected a grenade launched from the enemy position. Everyone hit the dirt, putting their hands and M4 beneath their body armor to protect them. The grenade exploded, showering everyone with dirt and shrapnel.
“I got him,” Ramsey announced. As soon as the AI had detected the grenade, it projected its arc and angle back to the point of origin, highlighting the hostile who had fired it. She shot him dead before the grenade landed and before he could reload and launch a second one.