Countdown: M Day (3 page)

“Just as well,” Chavez said, stubbing out his cigarette and holding out his hand for another. He was something of a binge smoker, too. Martinez passed over the cigarette and lighter, rather than stooping to light the thing himself. The president, even in private, was too much a man of the people to permit such slavish decadence. His self image would never permit it.

Chavez took a deep drag, both enjoying the sensation and hating the fact that he did enjoy it. “Martinez, go home to your wife or something. If you stick around, I’ll smoke the whole damned pack. Anyway, leave me alone; I need to think.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

As the aide walked off, Chavez, left alone, turned his thoughts to his and his country’s problems. In his mind, these often blurred. Then again, of whom in his position would this not have been true? He turned his attention back to the folder, and especially the operations matrix it contained.

The basic plan is reasonable, I suppose,
Chavez thought,
no matter what I told Martinez. It begins with a propaganda campaign both inside Guyana and here. Here, our people are reminded of their historic rights and their obligations to the future. There, our revolutionary fifth column demonstrates for liberation. Our money—while it lasts—swells the ranks of those demonstrating even as it ensures a fair amount of press coverage in favor of re-annexation. Then there’ll be a riot or two. A border incident in which some people in Guyanan uniforms are killed on our soil, as will be a dozen or so—however many enemies of the people Yare may have to spare at the time—‘innocent civilians.’ Maybe. Fake civilians might be overdoing it. Blanca always was too dramatic.

Chavez felt a minor twinge of conscience, brushing it aside with thoughts of omelets, eggs, and the price demanded by the future.

Meanwhile, the forces required expand and train: Marines, Fifth Infantry Division, the Parachute Brigade, a couple of companies of commandos, one battalion’s worth of light tanks and an extra of artillery, the Navy, and the Air Force.

Marines …one battalion’s worth …hey, I like that. Who would have thought they’d be so clever? The rest, via ship, leave Puerto la Cruz, Puerto Cabello and land directly at Georgetown, then push south toward the airport, clearing the road so we can resupply by sea. The LST’s ferry in the remainder of that brigade. The paras jump into and take control over Cheddi Jagan airport from
Ciudad
Bolivar. A forward refueling point goes in well beforehand, just off of Highway Ten, near Tumeremo, for the helicopters that don’t have the range to make the round trip between Guyana and
Ciudad
Bolivar. Fifth Division stages out of
Ciudad
Bolivar and Tumeremo,
moving on helicopters, mostly, since the smaller Guyanan fields can’t take either the Boeings or the Airbus.

The Air Force, of course, pastes the Guyana armed forces, such as they are, in their barracks, before the first helicopter or plane touches down. Assuming that the ass-fuckers can find their targets, of course. This is not something I can guarantee.

Unfortunately, we can’t have them paste the gringo mercenaries. Or at least we can’t count on having them do it. There’s usually a regular battalion or two of gringos training there. Too risky to take a chance bombing them, even if the current regime in Washington is in sympathy with us.

Note to self: work really hard on getting the United States to not send anybody to train there during the time we’ll be operating. The planned riots should help there, a bit. If so, we can bomb the mercenaries.

Chavez exhaled in what was almost a sigh.
It’s a simple enough plan, really, despite having a lot a moving parts to it. I wouldn’t trust any of them to do anything too very complex. Not that the generals and admirals aren’t devious; they are. But they’re politically devious without being, at the same time, militarily all that clever.

Politically, they’re thinking that with the expansion of the ground forces, they can get rid of me. Too clever by half. Little do they suspect that that expansion is going to come
entirely
from my most fanatical young supporters. Let them try a coup when their force is
my
force. Assholes. Idiots.

CHAPTER THREE

Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory;

even more are false, and most are uncertain.

—Karl von Clausewitz,
On War

SCIF, Camp Fulton, Guyana

There was a framed poster on the wall of Boxer’s officer. The picture was a copy of the very famous painting by Leutze, “Washington Crossing the Delaware
.”
The caption underneath said, “Americans. We will cross an icy river to kill you in your sleep. On Christmas.”

“Sir, however much they might like to occupy this place—and, based on what we saw on the streets, Chavez has some serious domestic political and economic problems he’d probably like to take peoples’ minds off of—I just don’t see the assholes being capable of doing much of anything,” Eeyore Antoniewicz told the regimental Chief of Staff, Boxer. Both Morales and the Russian woman, Lada, emphatically nodded their heads in agreement, Lada more so than Morales. All three of the operatives were in the regiment’s field uniform, as was Boxer, himself. On Lada, pixilated tiger stripes actually looked cute.

Boxer was a few years older than Stauer, grayer, and of about the same height though not in such good shape. He’d been an Air Force two star working intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff when he’d finally balked over the sending of one too many overly optimistic, in fact doctored, intelligence summaries to the White House. He’d been with the regiment from within a few hours of its being proposed. His rank in the regiment was colonel, and he was, inarguably, the second ranking man in the organization.

The building in which Boxer made his main office, and in which he was being briefed on the team’s findings from their trip to Venezuela, was officially called “the SCIF,” the Special Compartmentalized Information Facility. This was a matter of sheer habit. In fact, it never had seen and in all probability never would see anything officially classified as “Special Compartmentalized Information,” since the regiment and corporation didn’t use the designation. On the other hand, the building was thick concrete, half buried under ground and covered with jungle growth. It was impervious to electronic penetration. It was surrounded by barbed wire. It was permanently guarded with both an interior and an exterior guard. And not just anybody was allowed into it. Thus, “SCIF” was accurate enough.

Besides, it held all the regiment’s and corporation’s secrets. All of them. This accounted for its two less formal names, one of which was “the Warren.”

“Details,” Boxer ordered.

“Yes, sir,” answered Eeyore. “We spent a bit over two weeks in Venezuela, based mostly out of Caracas. We checked all of the major naval bases—Puerto Cabello, Punto Fijo, and la Guaira. There we saw four LST’s, six frigates, two corvettes, one larger supply ship, two LCU’s, and three submarines, one of them one of the newly built Kilos.

“Sir, they never moved. None of them. They didn’t look like they even
could
move. It’s hard to explain …but when a ship’s seaworthy, it
looks
, it
feels
seaworthy. At least to the trained eye it does. Their fleet looks like compressed rust held together by paint.”

Morales gave Eeyore a dirty look, and shook his head, saying, “Sir, that’s an exaggeration. The most we can fairly say is that their ships don’t look well maintained.”

“Could they sail?” Boxer asked.

Morales shook his head slowly. “Not without some work, I don’t think, sir. Well …maybe the Kilo could. Probably the Kilo could. At least there were crew that went to the Kilo every day. Couldn’t say that about the frigates or the corvettes, the amphibs or the other subs.”

“Just to confirm I was seeing what I thought I was seeing,” Morales continued, “I went down by the port until I found a sailors’ bar. We’re talking a seriously demoralized crew there, sir.”

“The Air Force vas chust as bat,” Lada said. “Vile Peddy Ovizer Morales vas scouting out ze whore barz—“

“It wasn’t a whore bar,” Morales interjected. “It was a sailors’ bar.”

“What’s the difference?” Boxer asked, grinning. “Oh, never mind. Continue, Lada.”

“Anyvay,” she said, “I pud on an Aerovlot stewardess’ univorm and vent to ze airport. If anyvun asked, I hat my Russian pazzport. I vaited for one of zeir air vorce pilots to pick me up, which took approximately fife minutes. Including small talk. Two zirds of zeir aircravt vill not vly. Zis includes eqvipmend newly purchazed vrom Russia.”

Something about that last datum brought a look of utter disgust to the Russian woman’s face.

“While they were doing that,” Eeyore said, “I went to look over the harbor; the main naval one, I mean, Puerto Cabello.

“It’s a really nice harbor, sir. Except that it has one entrance, narrow, and easily mined. The only defense there was a fortress I make to be late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, with no armaments except for some antique ones on display, and no defenders except a bronze bust of a seriously pissed off looking dude with a bow tie. Mine that, sir, and their fleet, for all practical purposes, is locked up, even if it could sail, which it can’t. The
Namu
would be overtaxed but the
Naughtius
could do a decent job of mining it.”

The
Namu
was the regiment’s first submarine, lost during and then recovered just after the operation in Africa. It had lost its long ago killer whale paint scheme, trading that in for naval gray. Still, the name stuck. The
Naughtius
, larger and more capable, was an indirect purchase from Montenegro, through the good offices of the government of Guyana. The regiment had actually had to purchase both of the midget subs Montenegro had had for sale, along with Croatia’s Velebit, to make one decent one, and then pay for major refit for that one. It was even arguable which submarine the
Naughtius
really was. The hull had been
Velebit’s
but slightly more than half of the interior components had come from the other two. They’d attached the name
Naughtius
, as a sop to Croatia, which didn’t want to be blamed for the possible misuse of its former submarine. It had been a difficult project On the other hand, since nobody else wanted the things, Montenegro and Croatia had been quite reasonable on the price.

The regiment still had two hulls, though one of those was up on blocks, on land, at their small base of Wineperu.

“You know we don’t own any real naval mines, right?” Boxer asked. “Just the concrete dummies we use to support the jungle school.”

“Yes, sir,” Antoniewicz answered. “Maybe Victor should fix that.”

Boxer considered that for a moment. “Round up the rest of your team, please, along with Captain Kosciusko. I want to meet after lunch.” Then he punched a button on the intercom on his desk and said, “Lox, come on in, would you?”

Not everything secret was informational. Some of it was process. Other portions were personal. Since he was a person wanted for arms trafficking on every continent except, possibly, Antarctica, and since he had the process down pat for producing illegal arms pretty much wherever and whenever asked for, Victor Inning was, so to speak, a secret in himself.

Down the carpeted hall from Boxer’s office, there was a sign or, rather, there were three of them. One, with an arrow pointing straight ahead, said, “Contracting,” aka Lawyers. That was Matt Bridges’ purview, though he double-hatted as the regiment’s S-2, or intelligence officer. On the next one down, with an arrow pointing to the left, it said, “Procurement,” aka Guns. The third, headed toward the comptroller, Meredith’s, office, said, “Comptroller and Investments,” aka Money. This accounted for the other unofficial name for the facility: “Lawyers, Guns, and Money.”

Around the corner to the left from where the SEALs and the Russian woman briefed the regimental Chief of Staff, behind a door with the innocent label, “PROCUREMENT,” Victor Inning conversed with his former subordinate, Major Konstantin.

“Ever since the old man passed on,” Victor said, “life has sucked. Dull, dull, dull. I’m telling you, Konstantin, Hell is not a hot place, it’s a dull one.”

The old man of whom Victor spoke was his late father-in-law, a very high ranker in the FSB, which was the successor to the old KGB.

“So leave.” The major shrugged. “Nothing holds you here.”

Inning sighed. He shook his head, saying, “It’s not that easy anymore. This is the only place I can hide now. Here, just up the road from the middle of nowhere. The old man’s enemies back in the Lubyanka want me dead. Most of the governments in the world want me dead. The world economy is so shitty hardly anybody can afford decent arms anymore.”

“Oh, c’mon, Victor,” Konstantin chided. “It isn’t that bad. Stauer still gives you the odd mission, here and there.”

“Oh,
sure,
he does,” Victor agreed. “Provided that the recipients meet his ideological standards. Arms for Christians in the Sudan? Fine. Arms for the anti-Taliban resistance in Afghanistan, since the Americans gave up on most of that horrible place? Fine. Rifles for the IRA? Not. Antivehicular land mines for FARC or the ELN? Not.

“Bah! The things he lets me do aren’t even a challenge.”

“Well, if you want more excitement,” Konstantin said, “there’s an opening in Second—”

The knock on the door stopped whatever it was the major was about to offer. Without waiting for a welcoming answer, Peter Lox, Bridges’ senior assistant turned the knob and walked in.

“Major,” greeted Lox to Konstantin. “Glad I caught you here.”

“Peter Petrovich,” the major answered, with a head nod.

“Boxer wants the three of us, plus Captain Kosciusko, Bridges, the SEALs and Lada, Waggoner from Operations, plus Meredith and Gordon, to meet in his conference room after lunch.”

Harry Gordon, nicknamed “Gordo,” was fat. He was not jolly. He wasn’t even happy. Then again, logisticians are rarely very happy. Tankers who are not allowed to play with tanks are less happy still. And Reilly refused to let him command the First Battalion’s tank company, since he already had somebody there he was happy with, while Stauer refused to let him leave the Four Shop, since he had no adequate replacement.

He wasn’t made any happier by Inning’s news: “I’ve got some limpets, still, but that’s it. I don’t have any serious naval mines in stockpile, not anywhere, and, frankly, I don’t know where to get any. Could we make some?”

Every set of eyes turned to look at Victor with disdain.

“Um …I guess not,” he admitted.

Richard “Biggus Dickus” Thornton, supplied, “I don’t know about you fuckers, but neither myself nor any of my people are going to carry, set up, or have one fucking blessed thing to do with any homemade, jury-rigged, contraption that goes boom in the water. Not happening. No how. No way.” That Thornton was physically huge, a cross between a human being and a gorilla on steroids, gave his words considerable in emphasis.

“Frankly,” said Gordo, “I don’t understand the problem.” He turned to Boxer, saying, “You’ve told us—or the trained pinnipeds have—that there is essentially no way for Venezuela to get to us as they are now. So why worry about mining their harbors?”

“SEALs,” said Biggus Dickus, bristling, “
not
‘trained pinnipeds.’”

“Close enough,” Gordo replied, with a lack of a smile that reminded Thornton,
Never fuck with the supply people. They can get even.

Boxer leaned back in his chair, rested his elbows on the arms, put his hands together and let his chin rest on them. He sat that way, silently, for half a minute before he began to speak.

“Ed,” he asked of Captain Kosciusko, “if the way the SEALs and Lada described their ships is accurate, how long would it take you to get their fleet seaworthy again?”

“Minimum six weeks; maximum twelve months,” Kosciusko answered. He rubbed his hand across a bald pate and added, “Assuming someone shat them the money, of course. And assuming that everything they might need, to include expertise, is on hand or can be bought.”

“Between six weeks and twelve months is a lot of variance,” Boxer said.

“Ships are the most complex machines ever made by man,” Kosciusko replied. “You never really know until you start digging into them. Six weeks is based on the fact that the individual ships are fairly small. Twelve months on the fact that their flotilla is fairly large and, as reported, in poor shape.”

Boxer turned his attention to the operations officer, Waggoner. “Ken, also assuming that what they’ve reported on the Venezuelan air force and army is accurate, how long to make them combat worthy?”

“To fight who?” Waggoner asked. “All the really important parts of training are in the society outside of the military. And ‘you are what you were back when.’ They’re not a culture that produces any really large number of first class soldiers. Some? Sure. Everybody produces some. But to fight, say, the United States, they’d have to have started about five hundred years ago, when the Spanish took over the area. To fight Guyana, minus us …three months, probably. If they’re serious about preparing and if the money is there. But why?”

With his chin still resting on his hands, Boxer answered, “Because Venezuela’s economy is tanking along with the world’s, only a bit faster. Because Chavez needs a foreign crisis and can’t play the gringo card anymore; DC—rather the current regime there—is his moral ally. Because of the three places he could create that crisis, two—Brazil and Colombia—would kick his ass. Which leaves us, here.”

“I don’t think they could do it even here,” Gordo said, “not even if they were the best soldiers since Caesar’s legions. There’s just no good way to get here. Not a single road connection and only a couple of really shitty cattle trails between the two countries No rail lines between them.”

“Which leaves the sea and the air,” Boxer said, “which is why I’m going to Stauer to recommend we prepare for that, given that we probably are on Chavez’s to-do list. Which is why I’m giving you people the heads up to prepare to block those avenues. Because everything you folks are telling me is that no matter how long Chavez’s lead time may be, ours is longer still.”