Ashes - Warriors From The Ashes Part 27

the blackness of shadows below the forest canopy, darker shapes began to move toward the crest of a wooded hillside, hard to see in the night, harder to hear because these men were well trained in the art of night combat. Jones would allow no greenhorns on his handpicked a.s.sault force.

Davis had been a necessary exception.A ripping explosion sent Lloyd Davis into the air like a wounded buzzard, flapping his useless arms like broken wings, his AK-47 erupting in a spray of gunfire.

Men began to shout, in spite of Jones's order to keep quiet. Someone shouted, "They got Davis, blew him to h.e.l.l! Shoot the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!"

The chatter of an AK-47 filled the night. Another machine gun chattered in the distance, an Uzi by the sound of it, Jones thought to himself as he ducked under a low-hanging bush. Then a man began screaming, "I'm hit, G.o.dd.a.m.nit, I'm hit! Shoot the son of a b.i.t.c.h!"

Gerald Jones knew things had suddenly gone wrong. Davis had stepped on a mine, and now everyone in Raines's group must know they were under attack.

Squatting down, Jones c.o.c.ked an RPG and sent the grenade flying high above the roof of the jungle.

The charge detonated fifty feet in the air, blasting trees and undergrowth with shrapnel. Corporal Woods's shrill scream echoed across the forest as he sank to his knees, clutching his face with both hands in the brief flash of exploding gunpowder.

"I'm hit! Help me, Sergeant!"

"Screw you, Woods," Jones muttered. "A paid soldier has to learn how to help himself, you idiot."

He watched the jungle for signs of movement. Other than the fleeting shadows of his own men racing through the woods, he found nothing to shoot at.

The element of surprise was lost, all because Lloyd Davis was so dumb as to step on a land mine. A voice inside Gerald 251.

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Jones's head had whispered that he shouldn't take a man like Davis along on a mission this sensitive. However, good men were getting harder and harder to find lately, and his choices were nil on such short notice.

Jones's first priority was to a.s.sa.s.sinate Ben Raines, at any cost. But how was he to find Raines in the dark like this, with men shooting and dying all around him?

He crept away from the thick palm trunk where he'd been watching the failing a.s.sault on Raines and his crew, inching forward, hoping for a shot at Raines. He only knew him by an old photograph General Bundt had shown him, taken years ago when the SUSA was formed.

Staying low, listening to the hammering of automatic gunfire on all sides, he moved toward where he figured Raines and his men must be with all the stealth he could muster. If Gerald Jones could manage one thing well after his years as a Navy SEAL, it was stealth before he made a kill.

He paused at the edge of a clearing less than a hundred yards from the palm trunk, listening, watching, craning his neck to see what was happening to his a.s.sault troops. His men were being slaughtered, fromthe sound of it ... not that he gave a s.h.i.+t about anyone other than himself. One lesson he had learned over years of fighting was the value of his own life. It didn't matter a d.a.m.n who else died. Staying alive was priority one.

A voice behind him spoke. "You looking for somebody in particular?"

Jones froze-he did not recognize the man who spoke to him now-but it could be Private Watts, a Southerner from Alabama who'd stayed back with McKinney.

He risked a glance over his shoulder. "Is that you, Watts?" he asked.

"I've been called names. Smith is one of my favorites, but I stopped using it a long time ago."

A cold chill ran down Jones's spine. The man talking to 252.

him wasn't Private Watts or any other soldier in his company of Blacks.h.i.+rts.

"Nice s.h.i.+rt you're wearing," the voice said, coming from a dark stand of trees only a few feet behind him. "Not one of my favorite colors, black, but it's a nice s.h.i.+rt."

Jones tensed, ready to make his move with his AK-47. "Who are you?" he asked to distract the stranger.

"Ben. Ben Raines. I'm sure I'm the one you've been sent here to kill."

Jones closed his eyelids briefly. How the h.e.l.l had Raines gotten behind him? "There must be some mistake. We came here to fight the Mexicans."

"No mistake," the voice said. "Unless you count letting me get behind you. That was a h.e.l.luva mistake."

"Would you shoot a man in the back?"

"I'd shoot a sorry son of a b.i.t.c.h like you in the b.a.l.l.s if the light was better. I suppose I'll have to take the only target you've given me. But just for the h.e.l.l of it, I'm gonna give you a chance to turn around before I pull the trigger."

Gerald felt he had no choice. Either he would be shot down from the rear, or he could take a chance at having better aim than Ben Raines.

He wheeled, sweeping his AK-47 barrel toward the trees as his finger tightened on the trigger.

Jones was lifted off his feet by a hail of lead tearing through his body. As he fell over on his back, just before he lost consciousness, he wondered what Ben Raines really looked like.

Ben walked rapidly away from the dead body that was cooling in the humid jungle air. He knew the flash of his Uzi would've been seen by Jones's men, and he needed to get some distance between him and the site.

Within twenty minutes, the last shot was fired and the jungle was filled with silence.Moments later, a warbling whistle trilled over the jungle 253.

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night, and Harley Reno walked into a clearing, holding a flashlight aloft.

As Raines's team gathered to the light, Harley said, "I got the last one a couple of minutes ago. We're okay now."

Ben stepped forward. "We won't be okay until we get to the Mexican Army base at Durango. When they don't hear back from the patrol they sent to kill us, they'll probably send out choppers at first light. We need to be gone by then."

He glanced at Anna. "You going to be able to make double time from now on?" he asked.

She nodded, though the swelling of her ankle could be seen even through Jersey's tape.

"Yes, sir."

Ben consulted his compa.s.s again, then glanced at the night sky, studying the star formations there. "Okay, we'll head off in that general direction as fast as we can," he said, pointing to the southwest. "At first light, we'll slow down and make sure we stay under cover in case the choppers fly by."

"I'll take point," Harley said, starting off with his SPAS shotgun cradled in his arms.

"I'll bring up the rear," Hammer said, taking the second most dangerous position in the column.

"Let's go, people," Ben said, glancing around at the bodies sprawled all around them. "We've wasted enough time here."

254.

When Ben had heard from General Guerra that he needed the SUSA's help at Durango and Tampico, Ben had instructed Striginov and McGowen to get their bats headed south as fast as they could.

Both men called upon HEMTTs (p.r.o.nounced Hemits) to do the heavy work of transporting the heavy equipment the men would need. HEMTTs, or Heavy Equipment Mobility Tractor Trucks, were first used for cargo, recovery, and carrying tanks filled with water or fuel in the Desert Storm war in Kuwait in the '90s. They were essentially large tractor-trailers, fitted with four huge wheels on each side that were necessary for traveling through desert and sandy areas.

The HEMTTs tooled through the desert as if they were on superhighways, accompanied by the heavy M-l Abrams tanks, which could travel forty to fifty miles an hour and could laser-target six objectives at the same time; the smaller but no less effective Sheridan tanks, which were modified low-profile tanks fitted with the older optical sights; and the Bradley Attack Vehicles, or BAVs. All of these carried both 120mmcannons and fifty-caliber machine guns as their main armament. Also running alongside were the Vulcans, very small tanklike vehicles that carried a crew of two along with three-man scout teams they could transport quickly behind enemy lines, covering them with their own 120mm cannons.

The troop movements were led by the aircraft the bats used as air cover: Cobras, which had no night-fighting ability but 255.

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were deadly hunters in good weather, and Apaches, the super-expensive, all-weather attack helicopters that were state of the art in killing efficiency. The venerable A-10 Warthogs, planes that had been known in combat to have a tail and half a wing shot away and still return home safely, were used both as troop transports and tank hunters. They flew vanguard, and swept the area ahead of the troops for any enemy soldiers that might hinder the movements of the thousands of men Ben was sending into Mexico to help General Guerra slow down the advance of Loco's and Bottger's armies.

Harley Reno stepped out of the jungle a hundred yards from the guard post of the Durango Army base and held up his hands.

The guard, who looked to be no more that sixteen years old, leveled an old M-16 and snapped off a couple of shots in his direction.

Harley dove to the ground and considered blowing the kid's head off, then thought better of it. That wouldn't be a diplomatic way to enter the post.

"Hold your fire!" he shouted.

"Who . . . who goes there?" the soldier asked in Spanish.

Harley answered the same way, explaining he was with General Raines from the SUSA and they were there to see General Guerra.

After some confusion, the boy shouted for them to come on in to the camp.

Ben stepped out of the jungle, smiling at Harley, who was still lying on the ground.

Harley glanced up and grinned. "I'm applying for hazardous-duty pay if we're gonna be working with these dopes."

Coop strolled by, smiling. "I guess you just look like the suspicious type, Harley, not a clean-faced, all-American type like me," he said.

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"I didn't hear you volunteer to take point, Mr. All-Ameri-can," Harley growled, jumping to his feet.

"My momma didn't raise no fools, Harley," Coop replied.

"No, just a.s.sholes," Jersey called from the back, but she smiled as she said it.Coop gave her an injured look. "That hurts, Jersey, and after all we shared."

"You can share my bugs anytime, Coop, especially the fatal ones," she shot back as they neared the guard post.

The young soldier, after a fearful look at Harley, who towered over him by at least a foot, saluted Ben and said, "The general said for me to take you to him at once, sir."

Harley gently pushed the barrel of the young boy's M-16 up toward the ceiling. "We'll follow you, soldier," he said. "Wouldn't want you behind me with that thing."

General Guerra rushed from behind his desk to shake Ben's hand, nodding his greeting to the other members of the team.

"General Raines, I am very happy to see you, sir."

"Happy to be here, General. As it turns out, we have a common goal ...

to keep Loco and Bottger out of Durango and Tampico as long as we can."

"That is my hope as well," Guerra said. "Please, gentlemen and ladies, have a seat and I will have my aide bring you some refreshments." He looked over the bedraggled group. "You look as if you could use them."

"A couple of nights and a day in your jungles will do that to you, General," Ben said.

"Please, call me Jose and I will call you Ben."

Ben shrugged. "All right."

After Guerra gave the orders for them to be brought food and wine, he sat behind his desk, ready to get down to business.

"What are your plans, Ben?" he asked.

"Of course, I'd like you to remain in command of all the 257.

257.

Mexican troops, Jose, but I'll have to insist on giving the orders concerning the disposition and conduct of my men."

"Certainly, Ben, that is to be expected."

"Good, I'm glad we agree," Ben said. "Now, what is your latest intel on Loco's and Bottger's movements?"

Guerra whirled his desk chair around and pulled a large-scale map of Mexico down from a roller on the wall. "Here we are at Durango, Ben," he said, pointing to the map. "Bottger's mercenaries have taken Puerto Vallarta, Guadalajara, and are now attacking Valparaiso, about ninety miles to our south."

"How about Loco?""They are ma.s.sed at Ciudad de Valles twenty-five miles south of Tampico, and are now staging attacks against the Navy base there with helicopters and some older-model jet airplanes."

"No foot soldiers?"

"Not as of yet. The terrain there is very . . . how you say, wild. My officers think it will take them another two days for the troops to get in position to attack them."

"Why aren't they just airlifting them in with Chinooks?" Harley asked.

Guerra smiled. "The base at Tampico is not without its own defenses.

While our helicopters are of the older, Huey vintage, my pilots are fearless and have inflicted heavy damages to the more modern helicopters of Perro Loco's army. I feel he is afraid the Hueys would shoot the slower Chinooks down, so he is waiting until most of the Hueys are neutralized, as they soon will be, by the vastly superior Kiowas."

Ben nodded. "That gives Ike McGowen a couple of days to get some reinforcements to your base. If you will get me a radio, I'll get on the horn and tell him to put it in high gear. We've got some helicopters with the 502 that will make the Kiowas look like kids' toys."

"Oh?" Guerra asked.

258.

"Yeah," Harley said, grinning. "The Apaches will eat the Kiowas for lunch, if they've got the cojones to face 'em."

Guerra grinned. "I've heard of the Apache helicopter, but I admit, I've never seen one."

"The Apache is the most sophisticated and most expensive attack helicopter ever built," Ben said. "It's equipped with night vision and target acquisition and designation systems to enable it to fly and fight in all weathers, day or night. It's armed with h.e.l.lfire missiles that can lock onto and destroy any known tank, and for softer targets it's also equipped with 2.75-inch rockets and an extremely accurate thirty-millimeter Chain Gun."

Harley grinned. "And it flies at one hundred fifty-five knots and has a range of three hundred miles. It kicked b.u.t.t in the Gulf War and in Africa against Bottger a few years ago."

"Ike's also got a couple of Aardvarks," Ben said, "and their range is over nine hundred miles. Maybe he could send a couple of them to keep Loco's troops busy until he gets in range for the Apaches."