by Rick Partlow
Did that mean that a few months from now, some JAG prosecutor would bring me up on charges for what I was doing today? Or just as bad, that some Senate subcommittee would call me to testify?
I tried not to think about that, tried to think about something more pleasant. Allie. Dark-haired and slender, poured into those tight jeans she’d been wearing the first night we’d met, her eyes smoldering with the fire that could lead to some incredible sex as well as some knock-down, drag-out arguments. Like the one we’d had before I left. Allie had been royally pissed that I was being deployed so soon after she’d had Zack. As if it was my idea or I had any say in the matter. What the hell had she expected when she married a Marine rifle platoon leader? I hadn’t started the damned war….
That wasn’t working. Thinking about Allie was just making me mad, which was more distracting than being worried. I tried to think about baby Zack, but I could only see him in Allie’s arms and that made me think about her again, which pissed me off again. Maybe it was just better to worry.
The truck braked again, but this time slow and gradual, not like some asshole had pulled in front of us, but more like the drivers had come upon our destination. The drivers worried the hell out of me, too. They worked for Martijena. They worked for the International Red Cross too, but they worked mostly for Tio Carlito, and he had insisted that the EPV wouldn’t let them through the checkpoints without drivers they knew at the wheel. Jambo hadn’t been too happy about that and I figured if he wasn’t happy, I probably shouldn’t be happy, either. But Martijena had insisted and apparently, our orders were to make the man happy so he wouldn’t make waves.
Voices filtered back through the steel and wood and aluminum of the cargo box, speaking what I called “machine gun Spanish,” too fast for me to make sense of it with no context and the tones muffled. I didn’t know the voices of the drivers well enough to tell them apart from whoever was talking to them, but from the tones, I assumed this was one of the checkpoints we’d been warned about.
“What do we do if things go south, sir?” Sgt. Gregory whispered, eyes flickering back and forth between me and the front of the truck.
I put a finger to my lips, giving him the stinkeye. What the hell were we, teenagers?
I leaned over across the cab and hissed the answer into his ear.
“If things go wrong, we shoot every single fucking bullet we have to get out of the back of this truck, Gregory. Until then, shut up, okay?”
“Yes, sir,” he said. I couldn’t see his face, but he sounded abashed.
The conversation outside had ceased while I’d been busy dealing with my nervous squad leader and I strained my ears trying to make out any sign of someone approaching the back of the truck. I had my doubts as to whether the fake wall of boxes was going to work in practice and I was hoping we wouldn’t have to find out. I kept the muzzle of my carbine trained on the center of them, but the truck’s engine revved and we were moving again…and I was breathing again.
A low mumble from the two squads squeezed into the truck undercut the rumble of the diesel engine, the inevitable chatter of relieved conversation. I didn’t try to stop it, just let it run as long as the engine did. We slowed, turned left, sped up, turned right and I gave up trying to map in my head where we were in the city. If we’d been outside, or if the city had reliable cell coverage, I could have used the mapping software in my issue GPS or my personal cell phone, but we were stuck inside this dark cage in a dark-age city and I knew nothing.
We stopped again, and this time the rumble of the engine ceased with a shudder and the truck was still. I didn’t have to tell the others to keep quiet now. They shifted their positions, bringing up their weapons, some in the prone, some on one knee, some standing so they would all have clear fields of fire. Marinelli was at the center with his M240B, held at hip level, and several of them checked over their shoulder just to be sure they were well clear of the barrel of the machine gun.
We waited. And waited. And waited some more until my calf started to cramp up from the position I’d worked myself into and I had to shift my weight. I’d just let the barrel of my M27 sag when a metallic clunk vibrated through the cargo box as someone opened the rear doors of the truck. I pulled the stock of my weapon into my shoulder and brought the reticle of the optical sight over the center of the boxes, the pad of my trigger finger resting against the front of the trigger guard.
“It’s me,” Jambo said. “Move these damned boxes.”
That took some doing. Theoretically, there was supposed to be a quick release for the straps holding the wall of boxes in place, but it didn’t seem to want to work, and finally, Gregory came over to help me yank on the lever of the thing until it came loose. I tried not to imagine what would have happened to us if we’d had to get out in a hurry.
“Took you long enough,” Jambo said when we moved the boxes out of the way. “Hurry up, everyone out.”
We were parked in an alley barely wide enough for the box trucks to pass, and there was a chorus of muted curses as Gunny Moore led the rest of the platoon from the first truck in, squeezing through a gap of less than two feet between the bodies of the truck and the unfinished brick of the rowhouse on that side.
“Where the fuck are we?” Moore grumbled, coming up beside me and Jambo.
Jambo’s men were kneeling on either side of the mouth of the alley, where it opened onto a back street that had once been packed with shops. Their entrances were boarded up now, though some of the boards had been ripped away and I could see fires guttering where squatters had claimed a dry place for the night. I didn’t worry they’d see us. Fires indoors claimed their night vision, while ours was as sharp as noonday. It was the ones who’d be on the rooftops with Chinese or Russian NVG’s that I was concerned about.
“We’re deep in the heart of Catia,” Jambo told my platoon sergeant. “Which ain’t nearly as pleasant as being deep in the heart of Texas, believe you me.”
And believe him I did. The Catia barrio had been one of the poorest, most dangerous sections of Caracas even before the collapse of the economy and the subsequent collapse of the government. Now, it was a nightmare hellscape of gutted buildings, some empty from the Virus, some from the violence, and what was left strong enough to survive both, or simply desperate enough to risk anything for a chance at a place to stay.
“Get Third Squad down at the other end of the alley,” I told Moore. “Take the machine gun crew with them.”
Technically, Marinelli and his A-gunner, Pulaski, were attached to the company, but Captain Glenn had quite generously loaned them out to me, probably with the notion that I’d need them more than he would. I certainly hadn’t been about to turn him down.
“Jambo,” one of the Delta operators said, his words low but heavy with import. “We got someone comin’ in from the west.”
“Yeah, I see ‘em.” Jambo had his M68 slung across his chest and while he didn’t have to move it to be prepared for a threat, there was a subtle shifting of his hands. “I’m hoping it’s our contact.”
It didn’t take long before I saw him too. The man wasn’t trying to hide from us or anyone else, simply walking down the remains of what had once been a sidewalk, hands stuffed in his pockets. He might have been old, or he might have just been poor and starved enough to look old before his time. His clothes were worn but well-kept, store-bought blue jeans, a cheap copy of a Stetson and a Miley Cyrus concert T-shirt from ten years ago.
“You are from Tio Carlito?” the man asked, seemingly unconcerned with the odd collection of armed Americans.
“That’d be us, senor,” Jambo said with a nod. “Would you mind terribly keeping your hands out where I can see them?”
The older man laughed softly and pulled his hands out of his pockets, wiggling his fingers demonstratively.
“Thank you kindly,” Jambo told him. “You got a name?”
“Call me Jose.”
“Maybe you should have just called yourself ‘Juan Smith,’”
I suggested. The blank look on his face suggested he didn’t get it. Jambo shot me a quelling look.
“What’s the situation here, Jose?”
“The woman and child are in an apartment building two blocks that way,” Jose said, pointing off to our left, further into Catia. “But you won’t just be able to walk up and grab them.” He shook his head, then spat a stream of chewing tobacco to the side.
“You got a chew, brother?” Jambo asked. “I ran out yesterday.”
Jose seemed as if he resented the imposition, but he handed a rolled-up bag from his back pocket to the Delta operator. Jambo nodded gratitude and stuck a wad of the vile stuff in his mouth.
“So, what’s so bad that’s waiting for us up the street?”
“Major Stevie.”
“Major Stevie?” Jambo repeated, snorting amusement. “Is that a cartoon character?”
“It’s what we call him.” Jose shrugged. “You might know him better as Esteban Villanueva.”
I whistled softly. Yeah, I had heard of Esteban Villanueva. He was the Ace of Spades in a deck of cards with the high-value targets in this city printed on them, one of the most senior leaders of the EPV.
“How the hell did Villanueva know about Martijena’s ex-wife and kid?” I blurted, looking at Jambo.
“There’s a leak,” he admitted readily. “You surprised? This ain’t exactly the Pentagon we’re talking about out here, and you know how much that place leaks.”
“The building I saw the woman and child enter,” Jose went on, “is one of Major Stevie’s safehouses. He spends a night in one, two nights in another and so on, to make sure you Americans never have the chance to launch a Hellfire missile from one of your Predator drones at him while he sleeps. I have not seen him, but I did spot Orestes Cazador, his lieutenant, and wherever Cazador is, Stevie is close by. And there are a dozen trucks parked outside the building along the east side.”
I couldn’t see Jambo’s eyes, but his mouth was set in a hard line.
“Any more good news?”
“You use those spy drones,” Jose told him, making a whirling motion with his finger. “Stevie knows this. The building is ringed with those dishes he bought from the Chinese.”
“Jammers,” I supplied. “Just like the ones on that building last night. Which means we won’t be able to call in air support or artillery if shit goes south.”
“Tell me about the building,” Jambo said to Jose, his voice flat, his accent gone, subsumed in a professional tone.
“Four main entrances,” Jose said, “but the east and south are blocked off, unusable. The north and west are open, but guarded inside and out. Good observation on every side from the roof and upper stories, but there’s a covered pathway that will get you across the street from the west entrance. Not all of you, but some. Ten or twelve. If I take you. There are EPV soldiers patrolling the streets, at least twenty or thirty. Maybe as many again inside with Major Stevie.”
Jambo didn’t speak for a moment, his jaw working the tobacco. Finally, he spat and began speaking, as if he’d been working the words loose.
“All right, then. Here’s what we’re gonna do, Andy. My team is going up the street with Jose here. He’s gonna guide us into position as close to the west entrance as we can get without being seen. We ain’t gonna be able to radio you, so we’re gonna have to do this by timing. How long’s it gonna take to get into that position, Jose?”
“Ten minutes. No more than fifteen.”
“Give us twenty, Andy, then assume we’re in position. At that point, I want you to push down the street across from the north entrance and find the first defensible position you come to, start laying down fire at that doorway with your machine gun team. Get everything they have headed that way, draw ’em away from us. That’ll give us an opportunity to get inside and grab the woman and the kid.”
“Right.” I nodded, trying to envision the setup. “We don’t have a shitload of ammo, though. Even keeping it to controlled bursts, I doubt we can keep them occupied for more than five minutes, tops.”
“That’ll have to be enough. One more thing. Leave your platoon sergeant in charge of the main force. I want you to take a team or a squad or whatever you think is sufficient and go disable those trucks on the east side. If they squirt out before we can get to them, I want them left with no option but shoe leather to get out of there.”
“Why me?” I wondered. Not because I had a problem with doing it, just because I was curious why he wanted me to see to the task personally instead of handing it off to one of my NCOs.
“Because it’s important and could be complicated,” he explained, not seeming to take offense at the question. “And you’re smart. Which is why I brought you along.”
“What about extraction?” I asked, deciding to push my luck since he’d just acknowledged that I was smart.
“We’re gonna jump right back in these trucks,” Jambo said, nodding toward the vehicles. “Haul ass out of here but with our people in the cabs this time. There’s an intersection about two and a half klicks south of here where there’s a big parking lot, no cars on it. The Blackhawks are going to be waiting for our signal to come in and dust us off.”
“And what happens,” I asked, “if Uncle Charlie’s helicopters don’t show up?”
Jambo grinned and spat again, the stream coming dangerously close to my boots.
“Possibilities like that,” he told me, “are what make this line of work so fuckin’ interesting.”
Chapter Ten
“This is way too fucking interesting,” I said through clenched teeth.
The Svalinn armor was strapped tight into its frame in the cockpit of the shuttle, and since both the frame and the straps would take a lot more gees than I would, I knew on an intellectual level that breaking loose and flying across the cockpit into the fuselage wasn’t a real danger. But the sheer mass of the powered exoskeleton seemed to magnify every maneuver Captain Lee threw the shuttle into, adding momentum to the violent wrenching jolts, the creak of the stressed metal audible even through my closed helmet.
“We got three fighters on our tail,” Lee informed me—and in theory, the other shuttles and the Jambo and the Truthseeker, just in case anyone else could hear through the ECM jamming and the cross-chatter.
Not that they could do anything about it even if they could.
Things had started to go south right about the time we’d jumped into the outer edge of the system, past the orbit of the outer ice giant. The signal had gone out to the drones and they had, predictably, not responded. Olivera had made the decision to jump in anyway, despite the fact that we couldn’t see a damned thing, and I suppose I understood. It wasn’t as if we had a backup plan. Hell, this was our backup plan.
When I’d explained the situation to the team, we’d all shared a knowing look, one I didn’t need to have been a special forces operator to understand. Every soldier or Marine who’d ever heard a shot fired in anger knew that look. It meant, “we’re fucked.”
And we were, indeed, fucked.
I’d been securely ensconced in the shuttle with the rest of my team and two squads of Rangers when we jumped in towards Waypoint, but I’d also been tied into the ship’s tactical net. The data feed into the tiny HUD of my helmet was overwhelming, a wash of images, computer simulated animated graphics and raw numbers I couldn’t even hope to interpret, but the important thing was the announcements from the Tactical station.
I couldn’t even recall the guy’s name, though I had a vague sense that he was OG Space Force rather than any of the Navy officers they’d pulled into service to fill out the Jambo’s roster. They all sounded the same during combat, anyway, droning on in an affected attempt at stoic professionalism, trying to pretend they weren’t as terrified as the rest of us.
He’d started in a few seconds after we jumped out of hyperspace, recovering quicker than I could hope to, quickly enough that my consciousness began registering his report en media res, halfway through a sen
tence.
“…three enemy cruisers between lunar orbit and two AU’s out from Waypoint.”
The words had slapped me in the face, shaking me free of the haze I felt coming out of hyperspace. Three cruisers? Hadn’t the whole idea behind this venture been that there’d be no cruisers?
“Communications, signal the Truthseeker,” Olivera had interrupted the report. “Tell her to concentrate fire on the bogie in lunar orbit, buy us some time. Tactical, what’s the orbital situation?”
“I’m picking up enemy dual-environment fighters entering the upper atmosphere. Three squadrons, minimum.”
“Alert the shuttles. Helm, once we’re in high orbit for shuttle launch, turn maneuvering controls over to Tactical. We’re likely to be too far away for point defense turrets to do any good, but try to get us into position for a particle cannon shot that’s worth taking.”
“I assume you all heard that,” Captain Lee had said, his tone dry as tinder. “I’d advise holding onto your lunch, because I doubt this is going to be pleasant.”
Captain Lee was a man of his word.
We’d launched into the middle of a gunfight between titans and while none of the glittering blue antiproton beams were aimed at our shuttle, that would be small comfort if we were caught in the subatomic fury of one of the backhanded swipes. If the tactical feed from the Jambo had been hard to follow, then the view through Gunfighter One’s sensors was nearly unreadable, a jumble of images spinning in the firmament with the barrel roll Lee had sent us into with the steering jets to keep enemy lasers from focusing on one spot for too long.
But I knew there were three of the enemy fighters on us, so I decided to look for them because I had nothing better to do until we entered the atmosphere. The blackness of cislunar space alternated in the view with the blue-green arc of Waypoint in the camera views, not spinning quite fast enough to make me want to puke, but plenty fast enough to make it hard to focus, so I concentrated on the lidar and radar readings instead. They were color-coded for simplicity, and there were way too many red ones as compared to the measly four blue triangles representing our shuttles.