Читать книгу Oblivion Pact - Don Pendleton - Страница 12

CHAPTER THREE

Mexico

A long conga line of police cars drove along the mountainous road, their lights flashing, but the sirens oddly silent.

The backbone of the USA–Mexico combined antidrug effort, Firebase Azules, was a heavily fortified Mexican military base situated on top of a low hill that gave it a commanding view of the surrounding valley and the distant mountains. Concrete K-rails surrounded the entire base to deter suicide bombers from driving a truck loaded with explosive onto the base. Past the rails was a hurricane fence made completely out of barbed wire and topped with deadly coils of concertina wire, the endless coils of razor blades glittering in the early morning sunlight.

Grim soldiers stood in concrete guard towers, smoking, drinking coffee or polishing their M16 assault rifles. Security cameras constantly swept the perimeter, radar scanned the air and sonar probed the nearby river.

The United States of America and Mexico had signed a mutually beneficial treaty many years ago: the US supplied Mexico with military ordnance to help the nation’s endless fight against the drug lords that kept coming up from South America. The best of the best went to Azules.

Only recently, a submarine had been stopped off the Atlantic coast, and 180 million dollars’ worth of cocaine had been found. The crew was in jail, the cocaine destroyed at a special incinerator and the Mexican navy got a slightly used diesel submarine. All things considered, a pretty good day for the Federal Border Patrol.

Slowing down at the maze of K-rails, the police cars proceeded slowly over the expanse of speed bumps and hidden land mines. Stopping a short distance from a fortified guard kiosk, Dalton Greene turned off the engine of the stolen police car, and climbed outside. The billionaire was now wearing the regulation uniform of the Mexico police, including sidearms, sunglasses and wristwatch. A spray tan had darkened his skin to something more appropriate to a Caucasian living below the Rio Grande. The only subtle difference was the Threat-Level-Five body armor he wore under the uniform.

“Good morning, Lieutenant!” Greene hailed in flawless Spanish. “Is the base commander available?”

“Perhaps I can help you with something?” the officer asked, pushing back his cap.

The soldier was armed with a .45 Colt automatic pistol, while his partner inside the kiosk was cradling an M16 assault rifle with an old-fashioned M203 grenade launcher attached underneath. On top of the kiosk, a small radar dish never stopped spinning in its endless search for incoming enemy planes.

“No, sorry, I need to see the base commander,” Greene repeated, trying to sound apologetic.

Warily, the guard looked over the men and women in the eight police cars. Aside from the fact that they were all Caucasians, he wasn’t suspicious in the least. Mexico did things differently than most countries, not better or worse, just different, so while this seemed like a lot of police to send to a military base for any reason, it wasn’t unusual. More than likely somebody important was arriving at the base, and they were here to escort him to someplace else, like Mexico City for example.

“You have papers?” the lieutenant asked at last.

Greene grinned. “Of course!” He passed over a clipboard stuffed with documents.

The officer gave the sheaf of expertly forged papers only a cursory glance, then nodded to the soldiers inside the kiosk. One of them threw a switch, and the steel barricade that blocked entry onto the base slowly descended into the ground with the sound of working hydraulic pumps.

When the way was clear, Greene took back the forged documents, got back behind the wheel.

Driving onto the base, the members of Daylight smiled and nodded at the hundreds of soldiers going about their daily routines. Some were policing a grassy field, marching in formation, hauling away garbage, or yawning and scratching while standing in line at the galley. The smells wafting from the numerous air vents of the cinder-block structure were tantalizing.

“Any chance we could grab a bite?” a terrorist asked, leaning forward in his seat.

“Can’t see why not,” a driver said with a dismissive shrug. “But only afterward, I mean. You know...”

“Yeah, sure. No problem, mate.”

Parking directly in front of the base commander’s office, Greene got out once more, noticing that the other police cars were dutifully parking at strategic points around the sprawling base: the fuel depot, barracks, galley, armory.

Sauntering inside alone, Greene introduced himself to the young corporal at the reception desk, and was briskly escorted into the private office of General Juan Dias.

“A pleasure to meet you, sir!” Greene said, giving a crisp salute.

“At ease, Captain.” The general returned the salute, then offered a hand. They shook. “Way out here on the front line Azules is nowhere near as formal as back in the capital.”

“Good to know.” Greene smiled, gesturing at a chair.

The general nodded, and the billionaire took a seat. “I’m sure that you can guess why I’m here.”

“Some VIP is arriving unannounced at our airfield, and you’re here to escort them back to the capital.”

“Exactly, sir! Your reputation precedes you, sir.”

“Thanks. Now stop blowing smoke up my ass and tell me why you’re really here?”

Greene shrugged. “Honestly, we’re just here for the VIP. Some congressman from the United States wants to get a reputation for being tough on drugs. Same old, same old.”

“Fair enough, then. Cigar?”

“Thank you!” Greene lit a match, and let all of the sulfur burn off before applying the flame to the tobacco. “Magnificent!”

“Of course! Only the best here. We don’t share the crazy American’s trade embargo with our brothers in Cuba.”

“Obviously!” Greene sighed, savoring the thick rich smoke.

“So tell me about your latest kill?” Greene questioned.

Removing his own cigar, the general laughed. “You heard about that, eh? It was our biggest haul ever in drugs and hardware. Nineteen tons of heroin, and six more helicopters. Six!” Turning slightly at an angle, Dias looked out the window at the airfield. “This gives me a combined total of nine helicopters, eighteen assorted gunships and one submarine.”

“No! Really?”

“Honest to God. Plus more Hummers, trucks and APCs than I can remember.”

“Wow. You are a credit to our nation, sir,” Greene said, gesturing with his cigar.

General Dias shrugged. “It is my job.” But his tone said something different.

Glancing about as if to make sure they were alone in the office, Greene pulled a small black box from his pocket. “Now, this is something you may find very interesting,” he said, working the controls. A light flashed green on the box, then changed to red.

“What is it?” Dias asked, puffing away contentedly. “Some new form of radar jammer?”

“Oh, no, sir, something much more simple than that,” Greene replied, pressing the light.

Instantly, the box burst open and something lanced across the desk to wrap around the general’s neck.

“This is my own invention,” Greene boasted. “A new form of limpet mine designed to take out a moving torpedo. Watch what happens next, eh?”

Fighting to breathe, Dias clawed for the alarm switch on the intercom. But the linked segments of metal around his neck rapidly tightened until blood began to ooze out from underneath, and he dropped to the desk, his face purple, his eyes bulging.

“The more advanced version has explosive charges included,” Greene said, puffing contentedly on the cigar. “But I need this to be done quietly. Sorry about that.”

Shuddering, the general rolled over and went still. A moment later, there was a soft crack as his spine was crushed.

Saluting the general for a job well done, Greene went to the window. He smiled at the sight of the police cars parked at different locations across the military base, his people standing in a cluster on the grassy field reserved for drills and marches.

Here we go, he thought.

Changing the settings on the transmitter, Greene waited until the red light turned white, then he pressed it again and ducked.

The entire base rocked to the hammering concussion of all eight police cars exploding, their cargoes of dynamite and plastic explosives combining into a devil’s brew of annihilation. To the few survivors, the cars had seemed to simply vanish in a deafening fireball, the blast spreading out to flatten buildings, and send hundreds of soldiers flying high into the air in tattered pieces.

Even before the blast completely died away, the members of Daylight removed their earplugs and surged into action. Using their police revolvers to gun down any unharmed soldiers, the terrorists quickly reached the armory and upgraded to M16 assault rifles, M203 grenade launchers, Armbrust rocket launchers and flamethrowers.

Now the terrorists did a fast sweep of the burning base, ruthlessly exterminating anybody found alive. Some of the soldiers tried to fight back, others ran and a few begged for mercy, but it made no difference. The white supremacists of Daylight removed the Mexican soldiers with brutal efficiency.

Striding out of the main office, Greene headed for the airfield firing his 10 mm Falcon Magnum at several scurrying military officers. The unarmed men died bloody, still trying to escape. An older sergeant managed to get his pistol out, and Greene coldly emptied the entire magazine into the man, the 10 mm Magnum rounds blowing gaping holes.

Still smoking the cigar, Greene sauntered onto the tarmac and paused to reload. Several of his people were already at the airfield, the only section of the base that hadn’t been damaged in any way by the booby trapped police cars.

“Report!” Greene demanded, around the cigar.

“The executions are done,” Layne reported, easing a fresh clip into his exhausted weapon. The Barrett XM-25 rifle was a recent acquisition and fired 25 mm shells. At short range, the shells punched through the chest of a man, and at long range the chemical warhead detonated with enough force to blow the victim to hamburger.

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Greene muttered, holstering the revolver. “Miss LoMonaco, if you were hiding from an invasion force such as ours, where would you go?”

Scratching the treble-clef tattoo on the inside of her wrist, the woman paused in thought. “Grease pit in the garage with a car parked on top,” LoMonaco said at last. “Or inside the water tank on top of the roof, or inside an oven in the galley kitchen.”

Pleased at the quick response, Greene smiled. “Take twenty men and check those locations. We need to be sure there are no survivors.”

“Not a problem,” LoMonaco said, resting the warm barrel of the Neostead shotgun on a shoulder and starting forward.

“Alpha Team, follow LoMonaco!” Layne bellowed, and a squad of armed men surged after the diminutive beauty.

The garage proved to be empty, as did the water tank, and the ovens. But checking the freezer, LoMonaco found a suspiciously large pile of frozen beef in the corner. “Surrender or die!” she yelled, working the pump action on the weapon.

“Please, I surrender!” a young private replied, scrambling into view with both hands raised. “Please, don’t shoot, I’m just the cook!”

Amused, LoMonaco burst into laughter. “Sorry, but I saw that movie.” She blew the head off the cringing teenager.

Heading back to the airfield, LoMonaco had a strange smile on her face, and her eyes sparkled with excitement. The other members of Daylight noticed that, but said nothing, deciding that discretion was the better part of keeping lead out of their heads.

“All clear, Mr. Greene,” LoMonaco reported, pulling a fat Cuban cigar from a pocket and applying the flame from a butane lighter to the tip.

“Excellent! Thank you, Samantha,” Greene said, and went to join the others on the busy tarmac. “How is it going, Victor?”

With one boot resting on a crate of air-to-air missiles, Layne looked up from a clipboard. “Perfectly, sir! We now have eight Apache gunships, fully fueled and armed. Plus four Cobras and ten Black Hawks.”

“Are all the Blackhawks transports?” Greene asked as a man handed him an M249 Minimi machine gun.

“No, sir. Five are transport, four are being packed with spare fuel and munitions, and one is a mobile medical bay.”

“Any radar defusers?”

“Yes, sir. Plus radio jammers.”

“Excellent,” Greene said around his cigar. “Most excellent. My compliments, Victor!”

“It was your plan, sir,” the man said with a shrug. “By the way, how did the limpet function?”

“Perfectly!”

Somewhere across the base, a man screamed, an assault rifle chattered, and a burning building started to collapse in ragged stages, thick black clouds of smoke rising high into the morning sky.

“Now what about all of those F-14 jetfighters?” LoMonaco asked, brushing back a loose strand of hair. The action left a streak of blood across her face.

“Nobody in Daylight can fly a jet aside from the two of us. They only know helicopters,” Greene growled. “Besides, a jet would only get in the way of the next mission. Low and slow is the key, not death-from-above as the Americans like to boast.”

“Such a shame.” LoMonaco sighed, looking longingly at the nearby hangar, a sleek F-14 Tomcat sitting in the entranceway fueled and ready to go.

Unexpectedly, a bright flash erupted from the roof of the base library, and a fiery dart lanced across the decimated base to slam directly into the Tomcat. The multimillion-dollar jetfighter thunderously exploded inside the hangar, the spreading fireball set off the next jetfighter and the next. The entire airfield was hammered by a long series of strident detonations that continued for an obscene length of time.

When the last roiling blast finally dissipated, Greene rose from the tarmac to scowl in open hatred at the smoking ruin of the hangar. All of the planes were gone, totally destroyed, the smoldering rubble spread out for as far as he could see.

“What the fuck was that?” Layne loudly demanded, working his jaw to try to clear his ringing ears.

“Sir, does this base have a bomb shelter, or some sort of hidden panic room, whatever the military calls them these days?” LoMonaco growled, brushing debris off her police uniform.

“If so, it didn’t appear in any of the floorplans I stole!” Greene snarled, slowly pulling a long sliver of steel from his bloody arm. “Okay, Layne, your turn. Kill them!”

“On it!” the man yelled, starting forward at a full run. “Thomas, Hannigan, Stone, Ferguson! Follow me, boys! It’s showtime!”

Spreading out so that they wouldn’t offer the hidden Mexican soldiers a group target, the terrorists raced across the base, darting from building to building, bushes to cars, never fully exposing themselves.

“Okay, LoMonaco,” Greene started, then stopped.

Buckling on a flamethrower, the woman ignited the pre-burner, then sent out a hissing lance of flame and started setting fire to anything between the library and the all-important helicopters.

As a wall of fire rose high, the billionaire nodded in approval. LoMonaco was hiding the machines from any further attacks! Smart girl. The Mexicans might still shoot more rockets, but, unable to aim properly, it would be a total gamble on their part.

Suddenly, a great commotion came from the base garage, and the metal doors were battered open as a pair of Bradley Fighting Vehicles surged into view. The squat machines charged at the library, rolling over debris, rubble and corpses. Smashing aside parked cars, the vehicles cut loose with 7.62 mm chain guns, arcs of spent brass flying away, then the 25 mm rapid-fire cannons roared into operation, the streams of high-explosive shells chewing a path of destruction across the marble face of the building. Windows shattered, doors disintegrated and hundreds of burning books were blown out of the library to flutter away like dying birds.

There was a flash on the roof, and a rocket streaked down to explode in the street only feet away from one of the Bradleys, then another from the first floor flashed right past the second one to continue onward and disappear into the distant mountains.

Slamming headfirst into the side of the burning building, the Bradley crashed through the brick wall and men briefly screamed, their cries barely discernable over the blazing chain guns. Then the second Bradley slammed through the opposite wall, and the whole library visibly shook, loose bricks tumbling off the cracking walls.

Revving their big Detroit engines to full power, the pair of Bradleys smashed through the interior walls in irregular patterns, crashing through offices, computers and lavatories, crushing a dozen scurrying soldiers. Smashing out the other side of the sagging building, the armored hulls of the Bradleys were covered with plaster dust, blood, paperbacks.

Stopping only a few yards from each other, the Bradleys unleashed their 25 mm rapid-fires again, tearing holes in the weakened walls and blasting apart support columns.

The roaring conflagration inside the library blocked most of what was happening, but everybody on the base could hear the groan of the structure as it finally succumbed to the brutal attack. A wall broke free to fall across the street, scattering loose bricks for several blocks. The roof bowed, another wall cracked open wide and the entire building collapsed into itself, throwing out a thick gray cloud of concrete dust.

Still firing, the crews of the Bradleys sent in waves of 25 mm shells, pounding the library nonstop, grimly determined to permanently end the threat of the soldiers inside the hidden bomb shelter. Tons of loose masonry tumbled into the basement, along with broken slabs of concrete, and endless piles of hardback books. Soon the basement was an inferno of fiery chaos, the roiling clouds of dense smoke rising high into the sky to form the classic mushroom pattern of any intensely hot ground fire.

Pulling back a safe distance, the Bradleys stopped and the triumphant crews climbed out to start walking back to the airfield with Layne in the lead.

“It looks like we nuked the base,” LoMonaco chuckled, easing off the straps of the flamethrower to set the empty canisters on the sidewalk.

“Pretty damn near,” Greene said in agreement, slinging the Minimi machine gun across his chest. “All right, let’s do a sweep and recover any of our people who died. Bring the bodies along, and we’ll bury them at sea.”

“Razor up, people! Get those birds hot!” LoMonaco added through cupped hands. “We need to be airborne in fifteen minutes!”

As a clean-up squad got busy with body bags, a small man wearing thick glasses stumbled out of a prefab hut. “Mr. Greene, sir! I found the Gladiator!” the technician shouted happily, triumphantly holding up a control box.

“About damn time,” LoMonaco muttered with a disgusted expression. “Is it a newer model?”

“No, sir. But it’s still fully functional.”

“Good work, Langstrom!” Greene shouted, giving a thumbs up. “Take everything! We can use it in the Triangle.”

“Don’t forget spare batteries!” Layne added over a shoulder, already heading for a Black Hawk.

A few minutes later, everybody had a seat in a helicopter, and the stolen armada gracefully lifted off the tarmac in a whirlwind of smoky exhaust and acrid smoke from the countless small fires.

Quickly rising high, the helicopters angled away from the obliterated base and followed a whitewater river to disappear into the nearby mountains, heading due north toward the United States.