Countdown_ The Liberators Part 25

"Meh pick yah up de hotel. Faive."

Trim would have been late to the lobby without his sergeant to provide- "Sir, I haven't had cooking like home since I left b.l.o.o.d.y Jamaica and if you don't move your aristocratic a.s.s"-motivation. It didn't matter much; Drake was half an hour late anyway. This bothered Vic rather more than it did Trim, who didn't expect much from the Third World, to include Her Majesty's former possessions, anyway.

Somewhat surprisingly, at least to Trim, Drake had changed out of his sweat-stained customs uniform and looked really quite presentable in loafers, lightweight slacks, and an embroidered, short-sleeve s.h.i.+rt. He was still driving his government-issue car.

The drive was long and Trim quickly found himself getting used to Drake's patois, enough so that it sounded merely different, about as different as northern Scouse-flavored English, perhaps, or perhaps a bit more so, rather than utterly foreign.

Past the low built city of Georgetown, the car broke into mostly open farmland. Guyana didn't have a lot going for it and many of the people practiced subsistence agriculture.

Still, "What's that?" Babc.o.c.k-Moore asked, pointing at a gate blocking a road leading into a swamp. The gate had a sign on it: "CGX."

Drake sneered. "Oh, dah de government. Dey sells hunert seventy-five t'ousand acres for four hunert dollars each to an oil company. Never use. Back for sale, Ah t'ink."

Trim did some quick and rough mental calculations, U.S. dollars to pounds, sterling. "That's b.l.o.o.d.y cheap, Sergeant, even for swamp, roughly two hundred pounds an acre."

"Nah," corrected Drake who, again, wasn't stupid. "Yah don' unnastand. Dat's Guyanan dollars. Maybe four-hunert to de pound."

"Two U.S. dollars an acre?" Vic exclaimed. "A pound?"

"Bout dat," Drake agreed. "What you expect?" he asked with a shrug. "Like man say: 'Country got no secure border have to sell for what it can.' For us, dat about two U.S. dollar an acre." Drake pointed generally to the west. "See, Venezuela just over dat border and dem folks, dey got plans."

Trim immediately raised an eyebrow. "What the h.e.l.l are you thinking, sir?" Vic asked.

"Oh, just musing. I wonder if there isn't someone, somewhere, who could provide a secure border."

"Ah."

"Yah dreamin'," said Drake. "n.o.body cares enough about us for dat."

Which, Vic reflected, is probably all too true.

Babc.o.c.k-Moore thought Drake's daughter, Elizabeth, was dream enough. She showed her father's mixed heritage, with a touch more African from her mother, long deceased.

Still, thought Trim, she's pretty enough for any taste. My sergeant could do worse. And, he mentally added, after spearing a bit of mutton from the stew, she's not a bad cook. And best of all, when her father pries . . .

"Father," the girl had said, "these are our guests. Cease, at once."

Which absolutely endeared her to Victor.

D-83, en route to a.s.sembly Area Alpha-Base Camp, Amazonia, Brazil

"Well didn't you at least get the girl's number, Sergeant?" Trim asked, over the roar of the Porter's single engine.

The two Brits were the only pa.s.sengers on this flight. Still, the compartment was crowded. At this point, with the personnel mostly transferred and too much food required to buy it all in Manaus without raising suspicions, Air Gordo was having to fly in a ton and a quarter of comestibles daily. Thus Trim and Babc.o.c.k found themselves sitting, approximately, upon several sides of beef, a good-sized crate of canned vegetables, and who knew what else.

"She's obviously not that kind of girl, sir," Babc.o.c.k-Moore replied.

"How do you know if you didn't ask for her number?"

"A gentleman just knows, sir."

Trim looked very intently at his sergeant. "You're actually taken with her, aren't you?"

Vic sighed. "She seems very nice," he admitted, and wouldn't say more on the subject.

The two stiffened as they felt the plane shudder slightly and veer left.

"Base camp coming up on the left," the pilot announced over one shoulder.

D-83, Base Camp, Amazonia, Brazil

The drone of an airplane filtered through the thick jungle cover above. Beneath it, one hundred and twenty-nine men, including some of the attachments and minus a couple on duty or sick call, marched on rather less than twice that number of good knees. Reilly, personally, was marching on two bad ones.

I'd forgotten, he mentally groaned, just how G.o.dd.a.m.ned painful this is. And I never really considered how much worse it would be at my age now. f.u.c.k me to tears. I thought I had all the character building anyone could ever need.

Behind him, in two long lines snaking through the trees, with leaders s.p.a.ced out between them, marched Alpha Company. Sergeant Major Joshua took up the rear, just behind the stretcher-borne mortars, with First Sergeant George beside him. On one shoulder the sergeant major carried a machine gun that he'd borrowed for the occasion from the armory. He just liked the heft of the thing.

The heavy guns had been rotated among the platoons several times by now and were now back with the mortar section. The men lugging them groaned-and not just mentally-with the effort. Nor were they the only ones with some cause for complaint.

"Quit b.i.t.c.hing, George," Joshua said, sotto voce.

"I wasn't b.i.t.c.hing, Sergeant Major," George replied. "I was observing that we are all pretty much getting too old for this s.h.i.+t. My knees are killing me. And it's hot."

"Stop quibbling, George. And stop b.i.t.c.hing."

"Doesn't that a.s.shole officer know it's hot?" complained one of the larger former tankers, Adkinson by name. He was tall enough that there'd been some question as to whether he'd fit inside the turrets of the armored cars. The man made an effort to look intelligent, though there was some question about that, too. "And besides, what the h.e.l.l purpose is there in us marching? We fight from vehicles. Typical, dumb as s.h.i.+t officer! If he'd ever been enlisted he'd have more sense."

Adkinson marched at the tail end of the armored gun platoon. Just behind him a small infantryman named Schiebel carefully stepped on the tanker's heel, causing him to twist his ankle and fall to the jungle floor.

"Sorry, Adkinson," Schiebel said. He didn't sound very sorry. As he stepped over Adkinson's prostrate form, he added, "And just FYI, the CO was enlisted for four years."

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.

Eros mocks Mars.

-Brian Mitch.e.l.l, Weak Link

D-82, Camp Stephenson, Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Guyana

Gordo poured sweat as from a fountain. It didn't do anything too very good for his disposition, either.

It was sweltering in the hangar housing two of the five Guyanan Short Skyvans and one large container holding three partially disa.s.sembled armored car turrets on cradles. For various reasons, looming large among them the fact that Gordo thought the chief pilot, Samuel Perreira, to be a pure weasel, he had brought along Major Konstantin and two of his sergeants, Musin and Litvinov, for a little added muscle. True, the Russians (and Tatar) were unarmed. They gave the impression of men who didn't need to be armed to execute murder and mayhem.

Because he was fat, and often looked altogether too jolly, people sometimes underestimated Harry Gordon's innate ruthlessness. They likewise tended to overestimate his need to be liked.

"Yes, Major," Gordo said to Perreira, in a very unjolly tone, "we are both 'officers and gentlemen.' Notwithstanding that, you get not a penny from the escrow account until these three items are safely landed at the location I've given you."

"But how do I know-"

"How do you know you'll be paid?" Gordo interrupted. "Because the money is safely in escrow and I can't get it back for myself, even if I try. I can only keep you from getting at it and that I would have no interest in doing unless you p.i.s.s me off. Which you will, unless my . . . machinery is loaded on your planes and moved to where I want it before daybreak."

"But . . . "

Gordo turned around, huffily. "Konstantin, get the container back on the flatbed. We're taking it back to the s.h.i.+p."

"I didn't say I wouldn't fly it!" the pilot shouted. "I'm just concerned about payment."

"You will be paid. If being an 'officer and gentlemen' actually matters to you, then you would understand that."

"But you don't understand," the Guyanan said, putting his hands up, placatingly. "Okay, I can accept that I'll be paid, eventually. So can my copilot. But my men"-his hands spread out to take in the waiting ground crew- "are also taking risks and 'officer and gentleman' means less than nothing to them."

Gordo thought about that for a moment. Yes, he did understand the problem. So, "How much to get them-and them alone-working?"

"Seven hundred U.S. dollars," Perreira answered, with just enough hesitation to indicate he'd had to calculate what he thought he could gouge. "A hundred per man and a double share for the chief."

"Travelers' checks work?"

"Yes."

"Then get them to loading. I can handle that out of personal cash." Inside, Gordo fumed, I should have just bought the two Skyvans that were for sale. But then we'd have had to find more pilots . . .

I wish I could have flown them in Cruz's Russki helicopters, and I could have . . . except that the max ferry range for those requires so much fuel there's almost no redundant cargo capacity. Oh, well.

D-81, MV Merciful, Merciful, off the coast of French Guiana off the coast of French Guiana

It was a calm, if hot and humid, day. The engines thrummed below, with a comfortably reliable sound. On the bridge, the air conditioning hummed as well, though it was clearly straining.

"That's Devil's Island-rather those three islands are what we've come to call Devil's Island-pa.s.sing to starboard," Kosciusko told Cruz, pointing. "It's been closed for decades, though the Euros use it for part of their s.p.a.ce program."

"You suppose they'll reopen it just for us if we fail?" Cruz asked.

The question was a joke. Kosciusko considered it seriously anyway, before answering, "No, they'll just shoot us."

Cruz scowled. "Why is it you Navy types so rarely have a sense of humor?"

"Oh, I've got a sense of humor," Ed countered, "except when it's about my getting shot. Besides, I'm a former Marine, so there."

"Speaking of having a sense of humor and getting shot," said Chin as he entered the bridge, "Skipper, have you come down to look at the patrol boat? We've just about got the hull and superstructure fixed, despite the four hundred thousand screws involved, a good portion of which had to be removed and reseated. But, and it's a big but, we're stuck until we know what kind of armament you're planning on mounting."

Cruz scowled again. Kosciusko waved his hand dismissively. "The Chinese have a pretty good idea of what we're about, Mike. They just don't know where." Turning to Chin, Ed said, "We don't know yet what kind of armament we're putting on. Oh, sure, machine guns and such don't matter, fifty caliber, sixty, or even 20mm; those the mounts can take. But the main gun is the question. Our . . . supplier . . . is still working on something suitable."

"It shouldn't be that big a problem, Skipper," Chin said. "It took a 40mm Bofors, once."

Kosciusko sighed. There been a long series of e-mails between himself, Harry Gordon, Stauer, and Victor, none satisfactorily resolved. "If we had a 40mm Bofors that would be fine. We don't and our supplier can't get one. He's offered us the turret, basket, and a frame cut from a BMP-3F. Unfortunately, the 100mm main gun on that has twice the recoil force of the 40mm Bofors that the boat used to mount. Might rip the deck right off. Might split the hull. He can also get us a BMP-2 turret except there's no navalized version and the thing would rust away before our eyes. At the very least the electronics couldn't take the salt air and spray.

"It's a problem. We've also been offered a Nudelman 37mm, which the deck could take . . . if we had a mount. But we don't; it's an aircraft gun. Same story with the 30mm GAST gun-you know, that dual contra-recoiling f.u.c.ker? No mount and no time to develop and build one. And the tail of an Ilyus.h.i.+n 76 would be a hard fit."