Countdown: The Liberators-ARC (7 page)

"Bedroom upstairs. The one that's not full of boxes. I hung an S-2 sign on the door. There's a spare computer in it."

"That'll do," Ralph said. Patting a black nylon case, he added, "But I brought my own computer. It has certain . . . mmm . . . features, that yours won't. Now what about that strike team?"

"You know Terry and Biggus Dickus?"

"Terry Welch? Sure. I didn't know Thornton was available."

"Terry's pulling together his old team, part of it anyway, maybe as much as two thirds or three quarters."

"They're all out of service?"

"Got caught up in the same shit I did," Stauer answered.

"Fair enough then. Though two thirds of Terry's team won't be sufficient. You need more men, and some underwater demo guys."

"Biggus Dickus will be working on that."

After Ralph had left, taking his bag in hand, Phillie asked Wes, "Who's Victor?"

"Russian arms dealer," Stauer answered. "No, that's not descriptive enough. Victor Inning is the most unprincipled, unscrupulous arms dealer of any nationality in the world and perhaps in the history of the world. His main virtue is he will supply arms to anybody, no questions asked, and at what-I have to admit-is always a fair price. Ralph and I used him two or three . . . hmmm . . . three times in the past, when we had a mission and needed non-Nato arms delivered in a flash. He keeps his own stocks, his own ships, and his own little air force, too, Air Luck. Though he doesn't maintain the planes for shit, so they only stay up by luck. Still, what he doesn't have on hand he can usually get in a hurry. Speaking of which," Stauer turned his head and shouted, "Ken, have you got the basic OPLAN and Table of Org and Equipment yet?"

"Not yet!" came the return shout from the extra downstairs bedroom.

"Slow bastard! Hurry up!"

"Is it always this much fun?" Phillie asked.

"Oh, hell, no," Stauer answered with a laugh. "Usually it's sheer misery because you spend ninety-five percent-well, eighty, anyway-of your planning time prepping or giving briefings for a succession of military morons and civilian mental midgets . . . "

"We're going to need AMLs, or those with a mix of Ferrets," Ken called from the bedroom."

"Why?"

"Most common combat vehicles in Africa. Just about everybody over there has them. Would raise no eyebrows."

"I know where to get Ferrets," Gordo chimed in, from the kitchen. "Nine of 'em for sale in the UK for dirt. They'd have to be rearmed. AMLs are tougher. South Africa had and built thousands, but they've replaced them all with Rooikats and Ratels. The ones they've got have all been designated as targets."

From upstairs, Ralph shouted down, "The South African ammunition budget is for beans, these days. If those things have been designated to be turned into targets most of them are probably in near perfect shape at Tempe, near Bloemfontein."

"How does he know all this?" Phillie asked.

Wes sighed and answered, "Ralph used to be Assistant Deputy G-2 for the Air Force- "

"G-2?" Phillie asked.

"Intelligence. Then he was with the JCS-the Joint Chiefs of Staff-for a while. I understand they put him to pasture when he bitched one too many times about shading the intelligence reports going to the President. We used to work together, sometimes."

"A general?"

"Honey, there are three generals here. They're the ones who look really old, except for Ralph, and are wearing ties."

"But you were only a colonel." She wasn't all that familiar with the military but she knew a general outranked a colonel.

"Tools to the man who can use them," Wes answered.

There was the muffled sound of a toilet being flushed. A few moments later another man, maybe five-nine, graying and thinning hair, minor paunch, emerged from the master bedroom. "I need somebody who can hack into DCSPERS, MPRI, Blackwater, and Triple Canopy." Officially, Blackwater was called "Xe." In fact, everyone outside of corporate headquarters still referred to it as "Blackwater."

"What for?" Ralph asked from upstairs.

"Identify personnel. Cazz says he can produce the core of the Marines. I can cover the mech force cadre. Welch has part of a small team in hand or en route. I still need pilots, fixed wing and rotary, both, plus a UD team, and more special ops types. And medical personnel, cooks, couple of sappers, an admin puke to help me . . . "

"I can do that, or Bridges or Lox can when they get here. You'll have to be patient."

"Patience, my ass; I'm gonna kill something."

"Who's that one," Phillie asked in a whisper.

"That's the adj . . . the adjutant. Seamus Reilly. He's only here because he hopes I'll give him a strike mission. He hates being a personnel guy. Sadly for him, he was very good at it." Wes considered that for a moment, then added, "He was good at a lot of things."

"Will you?"

"Give him a strike mission? Maybe. Well . . . probably. But it depends on who else shows up. That said, Reilly's in the unusual position of being able to pull in about half a mechanized infantry company-maybe a full one, if he really tried-just from people who worked for him over the years. Just you watch, too. He's going to pull enough of them in and then present me with a fait accompli. I can hear him now: ‘Well, they're my boys, Wes. They wouldn't follow anyone else.' Never mind that most of those ‘boys' are anywhere from early forties to mid fifties."

"Is it true that they wouldn't follow anyone else?" Phillie asked.

Stauer sighed. "I've known two, maybe three, commanders in the Army that the troops cried over when they left. I've only known one who, after he left command, the troops formed grievance committees and went to demand of the higher commander that their old commander be returned to them. That happened with Reilly, if all reports are to be believed, at least three times." He sighed again. "Yeah, I suppose I'm going to have to give the son of a bitch a strike team."

"Anyway, Reilly's one of six men I've called who can bring the cadre for their own units with them. The others are Terry Welch-he was a Special Forces type-and Bill Cazz, a jarhead, plus Ed Kosciusko, retired Navy, and Mike Cruz, who was a jarhead aviator. Also Richard Thornton who was a SEAL."

"Jarhead?" Phillie asked. She knew what a SEAL was, from the movies.

"A Marine."

"Oh. Reilly said he needed medical personnel. Would an ER RN do?"

"It would help," Stauer conceded. "But before I let you volunteer we'd at least need to have a long talk."

The front door opened. Someone called out, loudly, "Free beer?" In walked Wahab followed by several more men, each clutching a small overnight bag. "Excuse me, Phillie," Stauer said as he turned to the door. "An army marches on its stomach."

He clapped one of the men on the shoulder and said, "Matt, Ralph is expecting you upstairs." To another, a tall, stout black man who looked to be about seventy years of age, he pointed at Phillie and said, "Sergeant Island, that's the lady of the house. If you would see her about messing arrangements?" Stauer's tone of voice contained a lot more respect for Sergeant Island than Phillie had heard him use with anyone, ever. Phillie had a couple of internal reactions to Stauer's words, pleasure at lady of the house and annoyance at the assumption she needed help with feeding people.

Then again, I've never cooked for even a dozen men, and more keep coming. Maybe I need to listen to Sergeant Island, or even let him take charge.

"Phillie," Stauer added, "Master Sergeant Island's bible is the 1910 Manual for Army Cooks."

"All the wisdom of the world, in one volume," Island said righteously. "Everything since is either mere commentary or obvious decay. The 1896 manual is, of course, very good, too, but a bit dated."

To a third, a big, bruiser of an obvious ex-soldier, he said, "Terry, I'm turning over my lodge to you and your boys. It's one hundred and seventeen acres with a log cabin down in Somerset, about twenty-five miles from here. I've already drawn you up directions. Go upstairs and pick whatever weapons I've got you think might be useful to train with until we have something more concrete for you to work with. At the lodge there are four Class IIIs, all suppressed, one Sterling, one Uzi, one Smith and Wesson Model 76, and one MP-5. There's also a single PVS-7"-night vision goggles- "with enough batteries for . . . well . . . a while. Ammunition for all of them is in the cabinets upstairs." To the last newcomer, Stauer said, "Ed, one of my guys is working on finding us a ship or ships and a sub. He's in the kitchen; answers to ‘Gordo.' Go figure it out."

"But I still don't understand what the mission is?" Ed Kosciusko said.

"Ah, that's easy. We're going to invade somebody by sea, land, and air, destroy a small navy at anchor, maybe blow some bridges, smash a minor air force on the ground, and in general have the time of our lives."

CHAPTER SIX

We cannot blame colonialism and imperialism

for this tragedy. We who fought against

these things now practice them.

-Joshua Nkomo

D-150, Port Harcourt International Airport, Nigeria

The ambulance doors were open, showing one weakly thrashing body, with sweat simply pouring off of it, a clustering of vomit about mouth and chin, emanating incoherent moans. Even in Port Harcourt, the stench arising from the body was something noticeable.

To either side of the stretcher-borne young man, seated along the walls facing inward, were six other men, all wearing masks and latex gloves. Four of these were Labaan and his cousins. Their bags were piled toward the front of the ambulance. Labaan, seated at the right rear, passed over his and three other passports to a stout customs inspector wearing a green beret and a short sleeved, gray dress jacket with epaulettes and sundry insignia Labaan had not a clue to the significance of. He actually rather doubted the insignia had much significance.

The inspector fanned through the passports quickly. He couldn't, after all, so much as see the faces of those purporting to be their owners. As for the fifth man, the one on the stretcher . . .

"His is in his pocket," Labaan said. "We were afraid . . . "

The inspector's eyes darted to the softly moaning body. He answered, in clear, clipped Nigerian English, with just that trace of upper class British accent, "I understand completely. But you see, I'll have to explain to my supervisor . . . "

Labaan reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew an envelope. "This is a letter of explanation from our captain," he said. The envelope was much fatter than any simple letter needed to be. It was unsealed. The inspector handed back the passports and took the envelope.

The inspector opened the loose flap and ran his thumb along the top of the stack of bills contained therein. About two thousand Euros. Half for my boss . . . no, a quarter for my boss. After all, he didn't have to take his life in his hands getting close to this diseased creature. Then, too, my job is keeping undesirable things out of the country. This one wants to leave, or would if he were able, and so I am just doing my job in helping him, and them, leave.

The inspector glanced over the letter. Good, it says nothing about money. He then took the three quarters of the stack of bills he had decided were his due, stuffing the roll in his left trouser pocket and leaving the remainder for his boss. On second thought, no, if I leave five hundred he'll assume there's more. The inspector took another two hundred, folded that, and slid it into his right breast pocket. That way, when his boss shook him down for the rest he could produce that. His boss might even give him back a hundred.

"Everything seems well enough in order," the inspector said. "And your casevac flight to Cairo is standing by. Damned odd plane for a trip to Cairo, though."

"I'm told it's what was available," Labaan answered.

"Yes, well, not my problem. Enjoy your flight and"-again the inspector's eyes darted to Adam's body- "good health to you."

Unseen under his mask, Labaan frowned. Poor Africa, to have such servants.

The Kenya Airways Saab 340 already had its engines running. Not having a rear ramp, it was suboptimal for a medical flight. Nonetheless it had been available to Labaan's chief, Gutaale, at an acceptable price. What did the chief care, after all, about four men having to manhandle a stretcher up a narrow set of boarding steps?

The flight attendant was female, extravagantly so, and dressed in a striking red uniform, complete to scarf. Equal opportunity had not yet hit most African airlines and, given the typical quality of the service, it was generally felt to be a good idea to give the paying cargo something to think about besides the accident rate or the probability that someone in the maintenance crew had taken a bribe to accept inferior replacement parts.

Kenyan Airways was actually much better than the norm is this regard. Nonetheless, its reputation suffered for the sins of the rest, hence the perceived need for pretty staff. Like Labaan, his team, and Adam, the stewardess was the result of millennia of admixturing with the Arabs across the Red Sea, albeit to a lesser degree. Thus the light brown skin, softer than the African norm hair, and somewhat softer features.

If the woman thought it odd that an emergency medical flight had been contracted for nearly a month prior, she said nothing. Indeed, she was far too occupied in trying to back out right through the airplane's walls to think of much of anything. She didn't have a medical mask, and tried-quite futilely- to cover her mouth and nose with one hand. The other was busy scratching at the wall behind her.

Ignoring her, except for a quick and appreciative glance at her chest, Labaan led the others to the rear of the aircraft. "Get him out of the stretcher and into a seat," he ordered. "Don't clean him up yet."

D-149, N'Djamena, Chad

In fact, the inspector's observations about the aircraft chosen for a flight to Cairo were spot on. You just couldn't get there in a Saab 340, without at least three stops, one of which was guaranteed to be a rotten, problematic layover in either western Sudan or southeastern Libya. This would have mattered, too, had the plane actually been going to Cairo. It wasn't.