Countdown: The Liberators-ARC (17 page)

"My name is Ozymandias," the chief whispered, despite the windmills. A few modern artifacts couldn't overcome the wreck of the city. Biggus' eyes glanced at a hand painted sign, in both Cyrillic and Latin letters. "Welcome to Hell," said the bottom half of the sign, in English. "I believe it," Biggus agreed. Below that, someone had added "Gays." Thornton couldn't imagine, Why the hell should they be worrying about gays, given everything else?

"You know, Chief," Antoniewicz said, "it's odd. I haven't seen a cop yet."

"What's to steal?" Biggus answered, reasonably.

"My truck if not keep gun," Father Pavel answered.

The stash turned out to be hidden under the crumbling concrete of a ruined building next to Saint George's Orthodox Church. The church, itself, was one of the very few buildings they'd seen since arrival that was not a complete and utter wreck. The Lutheran church was another. Biggus commented on that to Father Pavel.

"Victor generous," the priest answered. "Finns . . . Swedes more generous to own peeples." He pointed with a finger at a particular section of concrete chunks and said, "You move this. Bring out material. I get truck."

"You heard the man, boys," Biggus said.

Eeyore looked down at the mass. "How the fuck do we move all this shit?"

"The usual way, Michael," the chief answered. "One piece at a time."

By nightfall, the team of former SEALs was standing in a concrete lined excavation that led into the basement of the collapsed building near the church. A large and solid looking metal door barred the way in. Pavel produced a key for the massive lock on the door and opened it. Inside was a single metal shipping container. The priest also had a key for the lock on that.

When the double corrugated doors were opened, Antoniewicz was the first to speak. "Holy shit!" he said.

"I not know vhat inside," Father Pavel said. "Not vant know, eit'er. I go. You load truck. I drive to boat once you load. T'en you unload, t'en you go."

The chief answered, "Thanks, Father." Then, turning to Antoniewicz, he said, "Eeyore, you keep inventory. And the rest of us, let's get to work."

D-110, Paldiski, Estonia

The sun was just illuminating the sea to the north and west. The boat was still in the shadows, though distancing itself from the cliffs.

"I still can't believe this shit," Eeyore said, over the
thrum
of the engines. "How the fuck did he know exactly what we'd need?"

"He didn't," Biggus said. "There's all kinds of shit we don't need. And if you think I'm going to trust my life to ex-Soviet scuba gear, you're insane. Your life, maybe. Mine? Never.

"No," the chief continued, "Victor didn't know. He just put in everything that might be useful to a naval op, that he could get and stuff into a twenty foot container. Still, we have what we need. Set course for Londonderry. Three quarters speed."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"A brave heart and a courteous tongue," said he.

"They shall carry thee far through the jungle, manling."

-Kipling, "The Jungle Book"

D-110, Assembly Area Alpha-Base Camp,

Amazonia, Brazil

Monkeys? Check; they could be heard in the distance. Rotting vegetation? Check; it assailed the nostrils. Flowing water? Check; moving in a fine horizontal fashion. Mosquitoes?

"Son of a bitch!" exclaimed Stauer as he slapped one of the little demons into the netherworld, the blood from the bug spurting over Stauer's neck and the collar of the expeditionary dress he, like the rest of the thirty odd men in the party, shared.

"Fortunately, we've all had our shots," said the expedition's doctor, Scott Joseph, a recruit who had taken a long overdue sabbatical in order to go on the operation. The doctor looked for all the world like a cross between Egon, of the Ghostbusters movie, and Noah Levinstein, from American Pie. "That said, there's no shot for malaria. I trust I don't have to explain to anyone that mild diarrhea from the anti-malarial pills is infinitely to be preferred over the twitching awfuls. For that matter, a good portion of the malaria risk down here is Falciparum, which is pretty damned deadly."

"We know," said Stauer. He turned to look over his shoulders. "Sergeant Major Joshua?"

"Sir!"

"This-assuming you don't disagree-is home."

The tall, Virgin Islands black looked around at the jungle floor. The best that could be said of it was that it was high enough not to flood, flat enough for tents, and covered enough by forest growth not to be visible from the air or space without using technical means. He sneered but indicated no more than a general disapproval thereby. "It will do, sir."

Stauer nodded. Between two people who had worked as long together, and knew each other as well, as had he and the sergeant major, a nod was all that was necessary. Set up the camp, primus pilus, as think you best.

The sergeant major turned on his heels and began taking long strides in the direction of the leased landing craft that had brought the party, along with minimum mission essential equipment, up from Manaus. Stauer smiled with anticipation of the immediate sense of order and discipline that was about to be inflicted on the score or so of troops waiting at the river's edge.

"You sure about the Malarone, Doc?" Stauer asked. Malarone was a multi-drug particularly useful against Falciparum.

Joseph shrugged one shoulder. "Best we can do. Now if you could have found someplace more than nine hundred meters above sea level…"

"Nobody's mapped this area since the 17
th
century," Stauer said. "We may find such a height, still close enough to the river, in which case we move camp. Remember, though, that with our limited surface transport and needing most of that for construction, ‘close enough to the river' is, in fact, pretty damned close. Doubt we'll find anything."

"Fair enough. In the interim, I'll be spraying everything with Malathion."

"Why did you opt for that, rather than good old DDT?" Stauer asked.

Joseph gave off a small snort and began rubbing his hands together. "Brazil has the misfortune to be almost First World. They're just wealthy enough, and just well organized enough, to have almost eradicated malaria. Unfortunately, they weren't quite wealthy enough, or quite well organized enough, to quite eradicate it. The local mosquitoes now have a considerable degree of DDT resistance. Besides, the Malathion is almost as good, and almost as cheap. Some would say better and cheaper."

The doctor looked puzzled for a moment. "Say," he asked, "do you think I should go and make sure they set up the camp for proper field hygiene?"

Stauer laughed. "Scott, let me tell you something about the sergeant major. It is mere surmise on my part, to be sure, but I am pretty certain that a hundred generations ago one of Joshua's ancestors wandered in from the desert, after trekking up the Nile, and enlisted in the first Roman legionary recruiting office he came to, rising thereafter quickly to the highest offices to which such a man might aspire. I am also certain, and no one can prove me different, that the knowledge gained by that ancestor was passed down genetically. There is nothing you, or I, or anyone, can tell the sergeant major about setting up a camp that he wasn't born knowing."

Joseph rolled his eyes at that.

"Don't believe me, eh?" Stauer raised his voice, "Sergeant Major, how long to dig a six foot deep, twelve foot wide ditch around the camp, and use the spoil to build a wall, after cutting enough timber to palisade that wall?"

The answer came back in about half a second. "To excavate thirty-two hundred cubic meters of dirt and build a wall with the spoil would take, if we had the entire complement here, by shovel, approximately a day and a half, sir. Another day for the logs, though that would delay the engineers building the strip. Do you want a fossa and agger, sir? I wouldn't recommend it; breed lots of bugs, it would, sir."

"Negative, Sergeant Major. Just curious. By the way, how many shitters and pissers do we need?"

"Thirty-four shitters, sir, twenty-one pissers, assuming the naval contingent never billets here and the air contingent only does so intermittently. Those can be dug out in rather less time and are easier to control for bugs."

"Ahem," Stauer said to the doctor.

"Well if he's so smart and capable why wasn't he an officer?" Joseph asked.

Stauer shook his head. "Lots of bright people don't want to be officers. And of those that are, some are simply happier, for purely emotional and instinctive reasons, at lower levels. Let me give you an example: Reilly."

Joseph had only met the current adjutant and-so Stauer had finally determined-future mech force commander, a couple of days prior. "What about him?"

"He is, without doubt, one of the smartest men I ever met. He is tactically and operationally deft . . . no, deft isn't a strong enough term. He's fucking great. He trains troops better than anyone I've ever met, too. Any kind of troops, combat, combat support, or REMF. He should have been a four star. You know why he isn't? He doesn't know. At least, I don't think he does."

Joseph shook his head no.

"Because emotionally he is only really happy commanding a company, a group that is small enough for everyone to know everyone. He can deal with a battalion, well enough, but he's not really as happy there. See, he needs the fight, close up and personal. Without those things-"

Stauer was interrupted by a German accent, speaking breathlessly. That was the voice of Matthias Nagy, the leader of what would become the engineer section. Nagy was a half Hungarian, half German investment banker with a background in the German Army's Airborne Engineers. He'd been quite happy as a soldier but hadn't liked the direction his army had taken following the fall of Communism. When given a chance to be a real soldier again, he'd taken four months built up leave and jumped on it. His English was approximately as good as his German, with hardly even a noticeable accent.

Sweat poured off Nagy, as if he'd been running through the jungle searching for the area to put in the landing strip, and then run back again to report that he had. Stauer had no doubt he'd done precisely that. Nagy had been one of Reilly's acquisitions and came very highly recommended.

"I found a spot where I can put in a small airstrip, boss," Nagy said. "It will take maybe twelve days, including putting in the PSP. That assumes, of course, that my baby dozer, my grader, and my mini-excavator don't break and that everyone will collaborate in putting in the PSP . . . doctors included."

"Will they? Break, I mean?"

Off in the distance could be heard Joshua's, for the nonce harsh, voice, shouting, "No, you stupid bastards! The tent pins go straight in, not at an angle away from the tent. Yes, I know it's counter-intuitive, but otherwise, when the canvas gets wet and shrinks, the leverage pulls the pins too much, loosens ‘em, and causes the tent to collapse. Jesus, do I have to teach you people everything?"

Nagy shook his squarish head. "Good man, your sergeant major," he said. "Anyway, sir, the excavator's a brand new Volvo, and the dozer is a brand new John Deere, and the grader's by Caterpillar. Doubt if I could break them if I tried."

"How are you getting them off the boat?" Stauer asked. "The bank's pretty steep and just dirt."

Nagy looked only mildly concerned. "We're going to cut some trees and lay the logs down. Then I'll land the John Deere and use it to get the Volvo ashore, and the two of them to get the Caterpillar out. I've got the cables. Later we'll be building a dock and off-loading ramp."

"And how big does the strip have to be?"

"Cruz said that given the heat and high water vapor content in the air," Nagy said, "I'd better cut out a strip of twenty-four meters by about five hundred. A bit under eleven thousand pieces of PSP, three hundred tons and change. Course, I think he's being overly cautious. The planes are coming in laden, true, but they'll be leaving empty except for crew and fuel. Personally, I think we could get by with a field a half as long and two thirds as wide. Then again, the trees could pose a problem with a field that short."

"And how many rubber and other trees are you going to kill to do that?"

"Few hundred, no more," Nagy answered, with an indifferent shrug. Combat engineers loved knocking down trees. It was almost as much fun as dropping buildings and bridges. "Well, a few hundred for the field itself. More for some of the other things. And to disguise the shape of the strip."

"All right, then," Stauer agreed, satisfied. "Gordo Gordon has about two weeks to assemble what we need and begin flying it in here."

D-110, Meridien Pegasus Hotel, Georgetown, Guyana

They didn't call Harry Gordon "Gordo" just because it was the first five letters of his last name. In fact, he was fat. He'd always been fat and always had to struggle in the Army to keep within the strictures of Army Regulation 600-9. This was a shame, everyone agreed, since Gordo was one of the two or three finest logistic minds around. Then again, what could be expected of a regulation dedicated to the elevation of form over substance?

Still, he was fat and, as such, had a relatively high body mass to radiating surface. The short version of that was:

"God damn, this place is fucking hot! Reilly should be down here; he likes this kind of heat."

"He's got his job up there, boss," answered Gordo's assistant, retired Master Sergeant Warren. "We've got ours down here. And it isn't"-Warren cast his dark eyes around meaningfully at the hotel, the Meridien Pegasus, with its view over the town and the Demerara River-"it isn't as if this is exactly hardship duty."

As if to punctuate the point, a very womanly form in hotel livery swayed up, bearing a tray of drinks. Two of these she set on the table between Warren and Gordo.

Black women weren't usually to Gordo's taste. This one, however, looked to be a mix of black, East Indian, local Indian, and white and she was to anyone's taste.

"Forget it, boss," Warren said. "Tonight, she's going out with me."

"No problem," Gordo answered. "The first of the Pilatus PC-6s is due in this evening and I want to meet the flight crew at the airport when they arrive. And speaking of arrival-"