INFECTED

As Jersey stepped into the darkened laboratory, she felt the hair on the
back of her neck stir. Something was definitely wrong here.

She flicked on her flashlight and looked around. In the corner was a
large commercial-type refrigerator with a lock on it.

She knelt before the door and picked the lock, opening the door to find
it filled to capacity with bottles of murky liquid, the tops sealed with
paraffin. She reached into the back of the refrigerator and plucked a
bottle from the rearmost row, hoping it wouldn't be missed, then
relocked the door.

"Anna, come on, let's get out of here," Jersey said, "I've got the goods."

They went out the front door, and were in the process of locking it
behind them when a guard appeared out of the darkness. He dove against
Jersey, slamming her against the door she was locking. As he raised his
hand with a knife in it, Anna chopped across the back of his neck,
breaking one of his vertebrae and killing him instantly.

As he slumped to the ground, Jersey turned around with a look of horror
on her face.

"Don't worry, Jerse," Anna reassured her. "I took him out."

Jersey's face blanched white as she looked at a wet stain on the front
of her shirt. "That's not what I'm worried about," she said in a hoarse
voice.

"What is it?" Anna asked, spooked by the fear she saw in Jersey's eyes.

Jersey bent and placed the dog tags with Mingo Higgins's name on them in
the dead guard's hand, then looked up at Anna.

"I think we've just loosed the hounds of hell! Stay as far away from me
as you can, Anna," she said, pointing to the stain on the front of her
fatigues.

"Is that . . . ?" Anna asked, a look of horror on her face as she stared
at the dark spot.

Jersey nodded. "Yeah. The good news is, whatever the nasty stuff is
those bastards are working on in that lab, we now have a sample of it."

"But that means . . ."

Jersey nodded, and began to move at speed through the jungle toward a
stream that ran along the edge of the training fields. "It means I'm
probably going to get it."

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4 WARRIORS

FROM THE ASHES

William W. Johnstone

PINNACLE BOOKS Kensington Publishing Corp.

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Copyright © 2001 by William W. Johnstone

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6 "Let there be light!" said God, and there was light! "Let there be
blood!" says man, and there's a sea!

George Gordon, Lord Byron (in Don Juan)

7 Prologue

If a war had not engulfed the entire world, plunging every nation into
bloody chaos, the theory was that the government of the United States
would have collapsed anyway. Personal income taxes had been going up for
years and the hardworking, law-abiding citizens were paying well over
half their income to the government. The left wing of the Democratic
Party had taken over and passed massive gun-grab legislation,
effectively disarming American citizens; except for the criminals, of
course, and about three-quarters of a million tough-minded Americans who
didn't give a big rat's ass what liberals said, thought, or did. Those
Americans carefully sealed up their guns and buried them, along with
cases of ammunition. When the collapse came, those Americans were able
to defend themselves against the hundreds of roaming gangs of punks and
thugs that popped up all over what had once been called the United
States of America. The great nation would never again be accurately
referred to as the United States of America.

Slowly, an ever-growing group of people began calling for a man named
Ben Raines to lead them. But Ben didn't want any part of leadership. For
months he disregarded the ever-increasing calls from people all over the
nation, until finally he could no longer ignore the pleas.

Months later, thousands of people made the journey to the northwest part
of the nation and formed their own nation out of three states. It was
called the Tri-States, and those who

8

William W. Johnstone

chose to live there based many of their laws on the Constitution of the
United States: The original interpretation of that most revered document
was a commonsense approach to government. Something that had been sadly
lacking for years with liberals in control. But after only a few months
in their new nation, Ben knew that only about two out of every ten
Americans could (would was more to the point) live under a commonsense
form of government-a form of government where everyone, to a very large
degree, controlled his own destiny. The Rebels, as residents of the
Tri-States were named by the press, took wonderful care of the very old,
the young, and those unable to care for themselves. But if a person was
able to work, he worked . . . whether he liked it or not. There were no
free handouts for able-bodied people. If they didn't want to work, they
got the hell out of the Tri-States. Very quickly.

The first attempt at building a nation within a nation failed when the
federal government grew powerful enough to launch a major campaign
against the Tri-States. The original Tri-States was destroyed and the
Rebel Army was decimated and scattered.

But the federal government made one major mistake: They didn't kill Ben
Raines.

Ben and the few Rebels left alive began rebuilding their Army, and then
launched a very nasty guerrilla war against the federal government that
lasted for months: hit hard, destroy, and run. It worked.

But before any type of settlement could be reached, a deadly plague
struck the earth: a rat-borne outbreak, the Black Death revisited.

When the deadly disease finally ran its course, anarchy reigned over
what had once been America. Gangs of punks and warlords ruled from
border to border, coast to coast. Ben and his Rebels began the long,
slow job of clearing the nation of punks and human slime and setting up
a new Tri-States. This time they settled in the South, first in
Louisiana, in an area they called Base Camp One. Then they began spreading

9

out in all directions as more and more people wanted to become citizens
of the new nation called the Southern United States of America: the SUSA.

Ben and the Rebels fought for several years, clearing the cities of the
vicious gangs and growing larger and stronger while the SUSA spread out.

In only a few years, the Rebel Army became the largest and most powerful
army on the face of the earth . . . with the possible exception of
China's. No one knew what was going on in China, for that nation had
sealed its borders and cut off nearly all communication with the outside
world.

A few more years drifted by while the Rebels roamed the world at the
request of the newly formed United Nations, kicking ass and stabilizing
nations as best they could in the time allotted them.

But back home, the situation was worsening: Outside the SUSA, the nation
was turning socialistic with sickening speed. The old FBI was gone, in
its place the FPPS: Federal Prevention and Protective Service. It was a
fancy title that fooled no one. The FPPS was the nation's secret police,
and they were everywhere, bullyboys and thugs. Day-to-day activities of
those living in the USA were highly restricted. The new
Liberal/Socialist government of President-for-life Claire Osterman and
her second in command, Harlan Millard, was now firmly in control.

There were border guards stationed all along major crossings in every
state. Now, many of the guards had been moved south, to patrol along the
several-thousand-mile border of the SUSA.

A bloody civil war was shaping up between the USA and the SUSA. Rewards
had been placed on the head of Ben Raines: a million dollars for his
capture, dead or alive. But Ben was accustomed to that: He'd had
rewards-of one kind or another, from one group or another-on his head
for years.

Anna, Ben's adopted daughter, had been kidnapped by the

10

William W. Johnstone

FPPS. She was to be tried as a traitor against the Liberal/Socialist
government and executed. A very highly irritated Ben knew the taking of
Anna was to draw him out, for the FPPS was certain Ben would come after
her... which he did, with blood in his eyes. That abortive move cost the
FPPS several dozen agents and accomplished nothing for Osterman and her
henchmen. But it further heightened the already monumental legend of Ben
Raines . . . and made Claire Osterman and her government look like a
pack of incompetent screwups ... which they were.

After Claire completely lost her temper and what little rational
judgment she had, she started a civil war with the SUSA, using hired
mercenaries when half of her own USA troops refused to fight their
neighbors. All along a battle line that stretched for thousands of
miles, from Texas to Georgia in the Old South, federal troops faced
Rebel forces across no-man's-lands.*

Once again the SUSA, led by Ben Raines and his team, kicked Osterman's
federal troops' butt in battle after battle, driving her into a fury
that knew no bounds.

When Sugar Babe Osterman got word from her field commanders that Raines
had killed Commanding General Walter Ber-man, head of her entire Army,
in a hand-to-hand combat, she almost had a stroke, hi a fit of pique,
she notified Cecil Jeffreys, President of the SUSA, that if he and his
leaders-especially that bastard Ben Raines-didn't surrender, she was
going to launch an all-out missile attack against the SUSA at 0600
hours. The missiles were to contain a highly effective strain of anthrax
bacteria developed by a USA scientist named Yiro Ishi. The vaccinations
the SUSA had given their troops against anthrax would be useless due to
the nature of this new strain.

However, Ishi double-crossed Claire Osterman, and gave the formula for
an effective vaccine to Ben Raines and a fake form-

*Standoff in the Ashes.

11

ula to Osterman's government. As the plague began to decimate the USA,
Otis Warner, one of Claire Osterman's cabinet officers, conspired with
General Joseph Winter to have Claire Osterman killed in a plane crash.

When the plane went down, Warner and Winter, sure Osterman was dead,
took over the government of the USA, contacted SUSA President Cecil
Jeffreys, and began to discuss a peace accord.*

However, Claire Osterman survived the plane crash and was taken in by a
family in the Ozark Mountains of Tennessee, whose kindness she repaid by
killing the husband and wife. She contacted her old bodyguard, Herb
Knoff, and used him to help her establish her own "rebel" government
within the boundaries of the USA.

From there, she orchestrated a new war against the SUSA, enticing a
rebel leader from Belize named Perro Loco to attack Mexico and head
northward toward the SUSA's southern borders, while she hired
disgruntled FPPS and Blackshirt brigades to fight the leaders of the USA
and try to take back the country she considered her own.

Finally, in a decisive battle, Perro Loco's troops were defeated on the
very outskirts of Mexico City and driven back to southern Mexico, just
as Claire Osterman succeeded in driving the successors to her
presidency, Otis Warner and General Joe Winter, to seek asylum in the
SUSA.**

Claire, never one to give up her dream of defeating and killing Ben
Raines, hatched another plan for yet another war against the SUSA. . . .

*Crisis in the Ashes. **Tyranny in the Ashes.

13 One

Perro Loco's army is defeated in its attempt to take Mexico City, and
his forces have been pushed back to their stronghold at the old Mexican
naval base at Pariso near Villahermosa on Mexico's east coast.*

General Jaime Pena jumped to attention when Perro Loco, followed by Jim
Strunk and Paco Valdez, entered the commanding officer's office at the
Mexican Army base at Villahermosa. Pena had pulled his troops back to
this location after the disaster on the Pan American highway.

"Buenos dias," Pena said, saluting smartly.

Loco gave him a look, his eyes flat as he sat behind the desk in the office.

"General Pena, would you ask your second in command to come in, please."

"Certainly, comandante."

Pena stepped to the adjoining door, which led to the officers' wardroom,
and called, "Colonel Gonzalez, would you come in here?"

A tall, swarthy man, with a handlebar mustache and a knife scar on his
right cheek that coursed down his face to the corner of his mouth,
entered. He nodded at Loco and stood at attention, his back to the wall.

"Tyranny in the Ashes.

14

William W. Johnstone

"Now, General Pena, please be so kind as to explain to me why you failed
in your mission to take Mexico City," Loco said calmly.

Pena looked from Strunk to Valdez, who were standing behind Loco on
either side.

"But, comandante, there is only one serviceable road northward through
this miserable country, and it was heavily mined and defended." He
spread his arms wide. "I needed more air support, but the Mexicans had
ground-to-air missiles and shot the few helicopters I had at my disposal
out of the air."

Loco nodded, then glanced at Strunk. "Jaime, how much does a helicopter
cost?"

"Several millions of dollars, comandante."

"And an APC or a HumVee?"

"Many thousands of dollars, comandante."

"And a portable mine detector?"

Strunk smiled, shaking his head sadly. "Only a few hundred dollars,
comandante."

"Why did you not think that the road might be mined, General, and take
appropriate precautions? Surely, losing a few men with mine detectors
would have been preferable to losing"-he bent his head and studied a
sheaf of papers on the desk-"two helicopters, four APCs, three HumVees,
and four hundred and fifty-six soldiers, not to mention General Juan
Dominguez."

Pena, sweat beginning to bead on his forehead and run down his cheeks to
drip off his chin, lowered his head. "We moved so fast, comandante, I
did not think the Mexicans would have had time to mine the road."

Loco sighed heavily. "That is the truest thing you've said today,
General," he said. "You did not think!"

"I am sorry, comandante," Pena said, his eyes on the floor in front of him.

Loco slipped a .45-caliber automatic out of his pocket and aimed across
the desk.

Pena glanced up, his eyes widening and his mouth opening

15

to protest as Loco fired. The pistol exploded and the bullet entered
Pena's forehead, snapping his head back and blowing the back of his
skull out, showering the wall behind him with blood and brains. Pena's
body collapsed in a heap in front of Loco's desk.

Loco cut his eyes to Colonel Gonzalez. "What is your first name, Colonel?"

Gonzalez swallowed, the scar on his cheek pulling the corner of his
mouth up in a caricature of a grin. "Enrique, comandante."

"Enrique Gonzalez, you are now promoted to general and will be in charge
of our forces in Mexico. Is that satisfactory?"

Gonzalez glanced at Pena's body on the floor, trails of smoke still
rising from his empty skull. He nodded rapidly. "Si, comandante."

"And you are aware of the penalties for failure?"

Gonzalez continued to nod, unable to take his eyes off Pena's corpse and
its right foot, which was still twitching. "Si, comandante."

Loco stood up and holstered his weapon. "Good. Then let us go to the
communications room and contact President Os-terman of the United
States. I fear we are going to need some of her more modern equipment to
take Mexico City."

President Claire Osterman hung up the phone after over an hour
discussing with Perro Loco how his forces had been stymied on their
journey toward Mexico City due to lack of air support and strong
resistance from the Mexican forces.

"Jesus," she said, "God save me from Central American desperadoes who
think they're generals."

She looked at her team of advisors arrayed before her. General Stevens,
Harlan Millard, and Herb Knoff were sitting in chairs in the commanding
officer's quarters of Fort Benjamin Harris in Indianapolis.

16

William W. Johnstone

She winced as rumbling sounds and vibrations shook the ceiling. "Herb,
can't we quiet that infernal noise?"

He shook his head. "Madame President, ypu ordered the removal of the
wreckage of the building overhead yourself. The bulldozers cannot do
that without making some noise."

"All right, all right," she said testily. She was still pissed off that
Otis Warner and General Joe Winter had been allowed to escape the attack
on the fort the day before.

"How is everything going with my resuming command of the country?" she
asked Stevens.

General Bradley Stevens, Jr., nodded. "Very well, Madame President. The
Armed Services have all acknowledged your right to continue as head of
the government, and the rank and file of the Army is behind you one
hundred percent. A few of the officers whose loyalty was questionable
have been replaced with men I can trust, but overall, it's going just fine."

"And the country?"

"A massive propaganda campaign has been undertaken," Millard said. "All
of the media are cooperating, as usual. We are informing the people that
the coup attempt to overthrow you was orchestrated by Otis Warner with
the complicity of Ben Raines and the SUSA. In the absence of any voices
telling them otherwise, I think they'll buy it."

"Good," she said. "Now we have two things to do in addition to
restarting the war against the SUSA. One, we have to transport some
equipment to Perro Loco down in Mexico. He has control of the Navy base
at Pariso near his command at Villahermosa. General Stevens, we need to
send a transport ship down there with some helicopters, tanks, APCs, and
whatever else he needs. I'll leave the coordination of that to you and
your men."

"Yes, Madame President."

"The second thing I've got to do is get him some help with his soldiers
and command structure. He's just too damned stupid to run a war."

"How do you propose to do that, Claire?" Millard asked.

17

She glanced at a folder on her desk that read TOP SECRET, INTEL on the
cover. "I have here an intel report on Bruno Bottger."

"Bruno Bottger?" Stevens asked. "I thought Raines killed him in Africa a
few years back."

She shook her head. "No, as it turns out, Bottger escaped to the island
of Madagascar. He stayed there for a year or so, recovering from wounds
he'd received in his escape. Then he made his way to South America.
Intel has found out he's used his vast fortune to hire an army of
mercenaries with the idea of reattacking Ben Raines at some point in the
future."

Stevens shook his head. "I don't know, Claire. Getting involved with
Bottger will be risky. The man is a zealot and a Nazi. He will be very
tough to control."

"That's the beauty of it, Brad. We won't have to control him. He hates
Ben Raines so much he'll jump at any chance to get revenge on him. I
plan to get him and his mercenary army to join Perro Loco by promising
him unlimited access to our weapons and technology. I'll also promise
him he may have Mexico as a prize for his new Nazi state if he manages
to conquer it."

"But, Claire," Millard protested, "you've also promised Mexico to Perro
Loco."

"Yes, I have, haven't I?" she said, a smile curling her lips. "Well, in
the event they are successful, they'll just have to fight it out to see
who ends up on top down there."

Stevens nodded, seeing where she was headed. "Yeah, and after they've
weakened each other fighting it out, we'll step in and take over from
whoever's left."

Claire grinned. "Brad, you're a man after my own heart."

18 Two

Bruno Bottger sat on the terrace of his villa on the Ilha de Sao
Sebastiao, a small island off the coast of South America, and watched
the sun set over the ocean.

He had a glass of German white wine in his right hand, and used his left
to gently massage the massive scar tissue around his eyes and cheeks,
while his mind was filled with thoughts of a certain General Dorfinann
and the day he was forced to run for his life. . . .

"Tell General Field Marshal Bottger that General Dorfmann is here from
Berlin. I must speak to him at once."

Bruno Bottger heard the voice through a crack in his office door, which
led to a secured waiting area in his underground bunker where his
private office was protected from air attack.

Why is Dorfmann here? he wondered, cringing inwardly.

Dorfmann commanded the Gestapo in New Germany. The New Nazi Party
governed most of what had once been Europe, now held in an iron grip by
Nazi forces.

Dorfmann only answered to Kaiser Wilhelm II, political leader of New
Germany. Bruno feared only one thing from Dorfmann . . . that he might
discover his racial impurity, his Jewish mother, even though Bruno had
made certain all her birth and death records had been destroyed. But
Dorfmann was tenacious, always digging to expose enemies of the New
World Order.

19

While Bruno held a higher military rank, and commanded the New World
Order Army, he continued to worry that somehow Dorfmann would discover
his dark secret, even though Bruno's New World Army was more or less
politically independent of New Nazi Germany.

No one told Bruno Bottger what to do, quite simply because he held the
power, the military might to crush anyone who stood in his way ... or
had, until this upstart Rebel Army led by General Ben Raines came to Africa.

Raines was proving to be a more difficult adversary than Bruno thought
in the beginning. Among the worst bits of news, Raines's forces, headed
by that bitch Jackie Malone, had wiped out one of Bruno's elite Special
Forces squads in Zimbabwe.

The devil woman's troops had killed them down to the last man, including
the squad's commander, Major Cheli, a feat Bruno had thought was
impossible. Cheli had been among his best recon specialists in difficult
terrain. To take him and his Bantu scouts by surprise implied an
expertise in jungle warfare Bottger could only envy, and fear.

Bruno's trusted bodyguard, Rudolf Hessner, stuck his head through the
doorway. "General Dorfmann is here from Berlin to see you."

"Show him in."

General Dorfmann entered the expansive office where an old Nazi flag
adorned Bruno's back wall. Dorfmann saluted, his stocky, muscular body
still fit even though he was well past the age of fifty. He wore a copy
of the old Nazi uniform, as did all New Nazi soldiers, right down to the
knee-high black leather boots and bill cap.

Bruno merely nodded, not returning Dorfmann's salute as a show of
superiority. Neither did he stand up behind his desk, giving Dorfmann an
indifferent stare.

"What brings to you Pretoria, Herr Dorfmann?" he asked, feigning
indifference, as if whatever it was could hold no significance for him.

Without being asked, Dorfmann took a seat across the desk

20

and removed his cap, pushing a hand through his naturally blond hair,
pale blue eyes riveted on Bruno.

"A matter of great urgency," he said in his heavy German accent. "Word
of several military defeats for the New World Army has reached Berlin.
This Tri-States Army has the kaiser worried, wondering if they will turn
toward New Germany sometime in the future."

"I do not intend to let that happen, Herr Dorfmann."

Dorfmann nodded, plainly unconvinced. "We have learned a great deal
about this General Raines from a man who fought him in the Western
Hemisphere, a Simon Border. Border's mercenary army was soundly defeated
by Raines. These Tri-States Rebels grow stronger, acquiring more
equipment and more followers. Their so-called Manifesto continues to
attract people from all over the world."

"I've heard of this Manifesto," Bruno said, suspecting there was more
behind Dorfmarm's unexpected visit. He was, after all, Gestapo, not a
military field commander. Bruno still wondered why Dorfmann was here,
and if he posed a threat to him.

"It has tremendous appeal to the oppressed, to starving men who believe
in the foolish tenets of democracy," said Dorfmann. "The SUSA has been
built on these principles. But Raines has military power as well as
gilt-edged promises to offer believers, and now it appears he has too
much military strength for you to contain him. As I said, the kaiser is
worried."

Bruno gave Dorfmann an empty smile. "Tell the kaiser not to worry. All
is going according to plan. I am luring Raines and his Tri-Staters
across the continent toward South Africa. Then we shall cut off all his
sources of supply. He is doing exactly what I had hoped he would do."

Bottger yawned, as if bored by the conversation. "I have pulled my most
effective troops back to the South African borders, in order to attack
Raines after his supplies are no longer forthcoming."

21

"But the losses? We hear of so many of your defeats at the hands of the
Rebels lately. . . ."

"Soldiers must be expendable to serve the cause, General Dorfmann. Most
of the men we have lost to Raines have been these simpleminded African
natives . . . Bantu tribesmen and especially Zulus. They are continually
at war with each other, and when I offered the most powerful of the
tribal warlords a handsome sum of money to fight for our cause, the
greedy bastards accepted, as I knew they would. They die quickly, and
willingly, believing they are making themselves rich. Very few live to
collect the wages I've offered, and those who do will be exterminated
when we unleash the balance of our chemical and germ weapons on them, as
we pull out of Africa, to cleanse it ... after we destroy Raines and his
Rebels."

Bottger waved a dismissive hand, as if the deaths of the natives meant
less than nothing to him.

"As you know," Bruno continued, "our ultimate goal is racial purity on
this planet, as it was when the great Adolf Hitler unified most of
Europe. Had it not been for the damned Americans' intervention against
the Fuhrer, we would live in a perfect world where no genetic impurities
exist."

Dorfmann glanced over his shoulder. "May I close the door so we can
speak privately?"

Bruno felt an adrenaline rush of fear course through him, making his
heart pound like a trip-hammer. Was Dorfmann about to reveal something
regarding Bruno's own racial mix? Had he discovered Bruno's Jewish lineage?

"Of course, General. Close the door if you wish." As he said it, Bruno
pressed a hidden button under his desk to alert Rudolf to the
possibility of trouble.

Dorfmann got up and closed the door gently. Bruno noted he was carrying
a Luger in a holster tied to his waist. Dorfmann sat back down, giving
Bruno a piercing look.

"You mentioned racial purity before," Dorfmann began. "I wanted to
inform you of something, in strictest confidence, of course."

22

"Of course," Bruno said, sensing the direction Dorfrnann was headed,
wondering how much Dorfmann suspected, and how much he actually knew.

"There have been rumors in high circles having to do with you."

"High circles? Who do you mean? And what are these rumors?"

Dorfmann continued to stare at him coldly. The Gestapo was a place for
men with ice in their veins, and Dorfmann fit this mold perfectly. He
would have served Hitler well, Bruno thought.

"The kaiser himself has mentioned it to me, as has General Borgdahl.
Someone was looking into your past... for reasons I do not know. It
seems nothing can be found about one side of your family. There are no
records concerning your mother. It is as if she did not exist. The
kaiser and General Borgdahl wondered if you can explain this, and give
me some information about your mother so I can inform those who need to
know."

Bruno tensed, but tried not to show it, reaching for a desk drawer.
General Borgdahl was head of Schutztaffel, the Black-shirts, a death
squad enforcing policies within New Germany by means of executions,
killing enemies of the state.

"My mother was a simple woman," Bruno began, a well-rehearsed story he'd
told German officials before. "A peasant woman from Bavaria. She was
born at home and never registered with the government because the family
was so poor, simple farmers who did not understand the Order."

As he spoke he took a counterfeit file from his desk, containing forged
records of the birth and death of a Gertrude Fest, his fictitious mother.

"I did, however, finally locate a few documents in the basement of a
building in a small village in Bavaria. Here are my mother's documents,
what I was able to find."

He tossed the file in front of Dorfmann, waiting, assuming

23

a bored smile, as if he were totally unconcerned about the inquiry and
Dorfmann's veiled threats.

Dorfmann did not bother picking up the file, his eyes still glued on
Bruno. "Come now, General Field Marshal Bottger. Those records are false."

"False? Explain yourself." Bruno sat up straight in his chair. He was
not used to his word being questioned.

"Your mother was not Gertrude Fest. I know who she was, or should I say,
I also know what she was?"

"You must explain, and please tell me who else you have told about
whatever you suspect."

Dorfmann smiled wickedly, enjoying himself. Bruno's right hand moved
closer to the Steyer automatic pistol he kept in the same desk drawer.

"As you say," Dorfmann went on, "there are no records. However, I did
find an old woman who knew your mother from childhood. I searched for a
good many months to uncover this information."

"What information?"

Dorfmann's smile broadened. "That your mother was a Jew."

Bruno knew what he had to do, what must be done. "I will deny it, of
course, since it is not true."

"But it is true, Herr Bottger. I took down a statement from the old
woman myself. Your mother was Gertrude Goldman, not Fest as you have
claimed. She was even the daughter of a rabbi."

"Utter nonsense. The old woman is lying."

"No. She gave me exact details as to your birth, when and where.
However, all records had been removed. I'm quite sure you removed them
personally, so no one would know of your genetic weakness . . .
impurity, I should say."

"Have you informed the kaiser or Borgdahl of these false charges in
order to defame me in Berlin?"

"Not yet. I wanted to strike a bargain with you first. I am sure you
will agree."

24

"What sort of bargain, Herr Dorfmann?" Bruno asked, sitting back in his
chair, relaxed now that he had decided what was to happen.

"I want to leave New Germany and join your Army. In the end you will
control most of the world, in my opinion, unless this General Raines is
your undoing. I wish to be on the winning side when these wars are over."

Now it was Bruno's turn to smile. "You would become a traitor to your
own people, Herr Dorfmann?"

"You know precisely what I mean. Calling me a traitor is using the wrong
word. You are German, even if you are not of pure blood, fighting for
New Germany as well as your New World Order. It is simply that I wish to
be a part of what you are doing."

"And you'll use blackmail in order to do it?"

"Again, you have used the wrong word."

Bruno pulled out his Steyer, aiming it across the desk. "I call it
blackmail. Where is this statement you were given by the old woman?"

"I left it in Berlin for safekeeping, a form of insurance policy. I am
surprised that you feel it necessary to point a gun at me." Dorfmann's
eyes showed no fear, as though he was confident of his position in this
tendered bargain.

"Where in Berlin, Herr Dorfmann? Your life hangs in the balance."

"In a bank safe-deposit box. Only one person has the key."

"And who might that be?"

"You don't really expect me to tell you, Herr Bottger. I would be at
your mercy. And I know you won't shoot me either."

Bruno felt sure he could locate Dorfmann's safe-deposit box and open it,
using force if necessary. Few people in New Germany would challenge him,
not even the kaiser himself.

"Then I must inform you of your terrible mistake, Herr Dorfmann. You
have misjudged me, thinking I could be blackmailed. I will find your
safe-deposit box, and destroy the state-

25

ment you were given. But you will not be here to see it happen."

Now Dorfinann drew back, his cheeks paling. "You cannot think you will
get away with killing me."

"I'm quite sure of it," Bruno replied.

As Dorfinann fumbled at the flap covering his Luger, Bruno pulled the
trigger on his 9mm automatic.

Seven hollow-point slugs tore through General Dorfinann. His body jerked
in the chair seven times. Blood splattered all over the floor of Bruno's
office, just as Rudolf Hessner came rushing in with his pistol in his fist.

Dorfmann slumped to the concrete floor, making a wet sound when his body
landed in a growing pool of blood, groaning, his legs quivering in death
spasms.

"I was listening over the intercom," Rudolf said quietly, lowering the
muzzle of his automatic. "But you did not say the code word to come in
and kill him."

"Take his body to the lower-level incinerator and cremate him. Wipe up
the blood. Contact whoever flew him down here to Pretoria and tell them
that General Dorfmann has not kept his appointment with me. Tell them
I'm very concerned. Inform all guards to say that General Dorfmann has
not been seen entering the compound. If he has a driver waiting, go up
there and summon him to the lower level. You can say the general has
asked to see him at once. Then kill him and put his body in the
incinerator along with Herr Dorfmann."

Rudolf bent down to lift Dorfmann's legs, then hesitated. "He is still
breathing."

"What does it matter, Rudolf? Put him in the incinerator anyway."

"I'll have to get a body bag and carry him down. If I drag him he'll
leave blood all over the hallway and stairs."

"Do whatever you must," Bruno said, too bored now to bother with
details, putting a full clip back in his Steyer. "Make sure you take
care of his driver and any aides he

26

brought with him. If you need help, ask Johann to come with you."

"I won't leave anyone alive who came here with him," Rudolf promised.

As Rudolf left to get a body bag, Bruno gave Dorfmann a final glance.
The head of the New German Gestapo, the only man in Germany who could
discredit him for being part Jew, would be dead in a matter of minutes.
Now, all Bruno had to do was fly to Berlin and locate Dorfmann's
safe-deposit box. Then he would have Rudolf kill the old woman who gave
the statement to Dorrmann about his mother. His secret would remain
buried forever. Ultimately, he would have to execute Rudolf for
overhearing what Dorfmann said about his mother being a Jew.

Bottger's knuckles grew white around the wineglass and he felt a
stirring in his groin at the thoughts of how Dorfmann had looked at the
moment of death-killing had always aroused him.

He shook his head to clear the image from his mind. Shortly after
disposing of Dorfmann's body, he'd had to flee his headquarters for his
very life, and that bastard Raines had shot his helicopter down in
flames, burning his face off down to the bone.

Bottger, saved from certain death by Rudolf Hessner, had been too ill
for too long to go after the safety-deposit box Dorfmann had hidden.
Once its contents were discovered, the kaiser had no choice but to cut
off Bottger's funding and brand him an enemy of the state and persona
non grata in Germany.

As he remembered that day, Bottger's hand clenched further and the glass
shattered, cutting his fingers in several places.

Rudolf rushed from inside, where he'd been standing watching his master.
"You've cut yourself," he said, as he knelt next to Bottger and applied
a soft cloth to his hand.

27

"I was thinking of the past," Bottger muttered, his voice hoarse with
emotion.

Rudolf glanced up at him. "Better to think of the future and President
Osterman's offer."

"You trust her then?" Bottger asked, staring at his only friend in the
world.

Rudolf shook his head. "Not for a moment, sir, but I do trust you to use
her as long as we need her to get back at Raines and the SUSA." He
shrugged, squeezing Bottger's hand to stop the bleeding. "After that,
who knows?"

Bottger's eyes flicked back to the setting sun, and the scar tissue
around his mouth tightened as he tried to smile. "Exactly, dear Rudolf.
After we are done with the bitch president and no longer need her
support, we will do with her whatever we wish."

28 Three

Perro Loco was born Dorotero Arango in a small village in Nicaragua
thirty-five years ago. Like so many of the places down there in those
times, the area was under the sway of one of the local "rebel" leaders,
a man named Santiago Guzman. Guzman was more like a tribal warlord,
exacting tribute from the villagers in the form of food, money, and
sometimes the young men of the village when he needed them to join his
forces. Guzman was known as El Machete, The Knife, because he always
carried a long machete he used to execute those who disobeyed his orders.

One day when Dorotero was just entering his teens, El Machete came to
his village and called his father out of their hut. He said he needed
the boy to come with him. Dorotero's father declined, saying the boy was
needed at home to take care of his mother and sister while the father
worked the fields. El Machete didn't argue. He simply walked over to the
boy's mother and sister and beheaded them with one swipe of his long
knife. When the father fell to his knees, cradling his dead wife in his
arms, El Machete killed him too. Then he turned to the boy and said,
"Now you have no reason to stay in this miserable pigsty of a village."

Instead of following El Machete's orders, the boy told the man he needed
to go into their hut and gather his things. When he came out, he walked
up to El Machete, pulled a sickle his father used to cut ribbon cane
from beneath his shirt, and buried it in El Machete's chest. Guzman had
time for one swipe

29

with his machete, and he laid Dorotero's face open with it before he
died, giving him a scar he would carry with him until he died.

Dorotero then went on a killing spree, grabbing El Machete's long knife
from his hand and killing three of his men before they could draw their
weapons. As he stood there in the clearing in the middle of his village,
one of the neighbors is said to have whispered, "Perro Loco," meaning
Mad Dog. Dorotero took that as his name and vanished into the jungle,
where he began recruiting his own gang, which soon became known for
their ferocity and viciousness and utter lack of mercy toward their enemies.

Such was the history of the man who now sat behind an admiral's desk at
the Mexican Navy's base at Pariso. As his two top assistants entered the
room, Perro Loco glanced at them with approval. They suited his needs
admirably.

Paco Valdez was a tall Mexican who loved killing, especially with his
hands, more than most men liked sex. It was said among the troops that
if he went more than a few days without killing, he would get edgy,
irritable, and men would make sure to stay out of his sight.

Jim Strunk was a transplanted Englishman with a Belizian wife and four
children. As Chief of Security at Comandante Perro Loco's headquarters,
Strunk knew what was expected of him, and rarely hesitated to carry out
his comandante's orders, especially if it involved the shedding of blood.

Strunk was an ex-SAS sergeant from the British Army. The Special Air
Service units were specialized forces used for much of the British
Army's undercover work, which would range from operating behind enemy
lines to the surveillance and infiltration of terrorist groups. They
were so well trained and deadly, the Americans had copied their training
methods for their own special forces. The Americans' 1st Special Forces
Operational Detachment Delta was created with the SAS as a model, the
SFOD-Delta intended as an overseas counterterror-

30

ist unit specializing in hostage rescues, barricade operations, and
high-risk reconnaissance.

When Strunk infiltrated Perro Loco's band of terrorists, he realized he
could go much farther and get much richer if he switched sides and
allegiance to the man known as Mad Dog. He also got many more chances to
use his specialized training in killing, which he enjoyed almost more
than the money he was paid.

"Good morning, comandante," Valdez said, touching the brim of his hat
with his hand in a lackadaisical salute.

Strunk, standing ramrod straight as always, gave a more formal salute,
his flattened palm against his forehead in the British manner. "Good
morning, sir," he said in a crisp military voice.

Loco nodded and waved his hand lazily in a semisalute. "Good day,
gentlemen," he said, turning his chair to look out the window at the
docks and wharves nearby. "Has there been any sign of the tankers
President Osterman has sent us?"

"No, sir," Strunk said.

"Perhaps they have been intercepted by either the Mexican Navy or that
of the SUSA," Valdez said, a worried look on his face.

Loco shook his head. "No. President Osterman assured me her spies have
determined the coward of a president of Mexico wants no further
fighting, and is willing to let us stay here in southern Mexico if we do
not try to proceed any further north."

"What about the SUSA and Ben Raines?" Valdez asked. "Surely he is not so
forgiving."

Loco turned his chair back around, a grin on his face that pulled the
scar on his cheek tight. "Fortunately, Raines has his hands tied by the
Mexican government's fears. They have forbidden him to take unilateral
action, the fools."

Strunk shook his head. "So, he must sit on his hands while Osterman
rearms us and sends us more modern equipment by tanker ship."

"Yes," Loco said, his eyes glittering. "It seems we are to

31

be the beneficiaries of the Mexican president's lack of co-jones."

"His lack of balls is exceeded only by his ignorance, I think," Paco
Valdez said.

"Now, go and get the soldiers ready to unload the tankers as soon as
they arrive," Loco said to Valdez.

He looked then at Strunk. "And you need to get your officers ready and
up to speed on the use of the new helicopters and gunships and other
hardware Osterman is giving us."

Strunk nodded. "Yes, sir. I'll break out the manuals and start the
lessons today. Once the hardware is here, I'll start hands-on training."

"Good," Loco said, an approving look on his face. "I want to be able to
renew our offensive by week's end."

Ben Raines called an emergency meeting with his team at the SUSA
headquarters near Tucson, Arizona, on the old Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.

As his personal team filed into his office, he reflected on how lucky he
was to have such a talented bunch of men and women working with him.

The first through the door, as usual, was Jersey, his personal
bodyguard. She was rarely away from his side, and considered his safety
her mission in life. Part Apache, she often had visions or dreams that
foretold of danger or gave warnings of future happenings. She was tough
as nails and somewhat masculine, like a female marine.

Following Jersey, Cooper sauntered in. Coop, Ben's driver, was the
nemesis of Jersey, with whom he had a love/hate relationship. Their
constant bantering and jibing at each other concealed the real depth of
their feelings.

Corrie, the radio tech, and Beth, the team statistician, came in next,
talking to each other as usual.

Anna, Ben's adopted daughter, followed the other women into the room.
Part Gypsy, she, like Jersey, could see into the

32

future on occasion, a heritage of her Gypsy ancestors. Currently, she
was under the spell of a strong infatuation with Harley Reno, and could
barely keep her eyes off him.

Harley Reno and Scott "Hammer" Hammerick filed in last. Late of the
SUSA's special forces, they'd recently joined Ben's team as weapons
experts and tactical strike team leaders. Harley was well over six feet
tall and had flaming red hair, tied in a single braid that hung to the
middle of his back, and ice-blue eyes, inherited from his Karankawa
Indian ancestors.

Hammer Hammerick stood six feet three inches tall, an inch shorter than
Harley, and had dark hair and brilliant green eyes. There wasn't a
weapon made that he didn't know intimately, and his command of Spanish
had been very useful in the fight against Perro Loco's forces in Mexico
over the last few months.

"Have a seat, guys," Ben said, waving at the array of chairs around his
office.

Hammer stood aside with a smile as Anna hurriedly jockeyed for position
next to Harley so she could sit next to him during the meeting. Her
infatuation with Harley was well known by the team, and looked upon with
some appreciation.

"What's up, Boss Man?" Jersey asked, sitting in the chair closest to Ben.

"Mike should be here any minute to give us the latest intel on Sugar
Babe Osterman and her latest endeavors."

Mike Post was the Rebels' Chief of Intelligence, and often acted as
Ben's second in command when Ben was in the field.

Seconds later, Mike entered the room, his ever-present pipe sending
clouds of aromatic smoke into the air.

He nodded at Ben and the team, then took center stage, standing next to
Ben's desk where he could address the entire group.

"I have some good news and some bad," he started off. "The bad news is
Osterman and her team have finally switched from using the old Unitel
model 602 scramblers on their trans-

33

mitters, so we are currently unable to monitor their talks as we used to
be able to."

"You mean the old National Security Agency satellites can no longer pick
up their transmission?" Corrie asked.

"Oh, we can pick them up," Mike replied. "We just can't make head nor
tail of what they're saying. The computers are working twenty-four hours
a day to decode the new scrambler codes, but unless you guys can come up
with one of their units, it doesn't look too hopeful."

"You said there was some good news," Ben observed.

"Yeah. Before they switched scrambler units, we managed to intercept a
few transmissions."

"And?"

"She made two calls yesterday. The first was to Perro Loco at his base
at Pariso. Sounds like she's planning to resupply him and continue the
fight for Mexico City."

Ben nodded. He'd expected nothing less from Osterman. She was a lot of
things, most bad, but she was no quitter.

"What about the second call?"

Mike shrugged. "All we got on it was the location she called. It was to
an island off the coast of South America. She didn't use any names, and
it was during this transmission she was warned to switch scrambler
codes, so we lost the rest of the conversation."

"Do we have any idea who she might have been calling down there?" Coop
asked.

Mike nodded. "Well, there have been rumors for some time of a massive
buildup of mercenary troops in the region. We've had reports some bigwig
down there is hiring all the men he can get his hands on, as well as
acquiring a lot of materiel and weapons."

"Any clues as to who this big man is?" Ben asked.

"None. We've sent a couple of men down there undercover, but they
haven't been heard from since, so I assume their cover was blown and
they were killed."

"Sounds to me like Osterman is calling in reinforcements

34

William W. Johnstone

to supplement Perro Loco's rather inept military leaders," Hammer observed.

"I think you're right," Ben said, rocking back in his chair. "Maybe it's
time we sent a team down there to see what's going on."

"Why not just intercept the shipment of weapons to Perro Loco and be
done with it?" Harley asked.

Ben shook his head. "Politics," he answered. "The president of Mexico is
sticking his head in the sand and thinks this will all go away if we
ignore it. He's refused us permission to conduct any military operations
in his country."

"A couple of jets with air-to-ground missiles could take out any tankers
heading down that way before the Mexican government could object,"
Harley said, his expression showing this was the way he would do it.

Ben smiled. "As much as I'd like to do just that, Harley, Cecil
Jeffreys, the President of the SUSA, has 'requested' that I do nothing
to jeopardize our relationship with Mexico. He thinks the Mexican
government will soon wake up to the dangers of leaving Perro Loco in
place and then we'll have our chance to take him out permanently."

"Of course, by then he'll be much better armed and it will cost us a lot
more men to do it," Hammer said.

"Can't be helped," Ben said, a look of disgust on his face. "Reminds me
of when the politicians were running the war in Vietnam. They got a lot
of young men killed who didn't need to be."

"Have you decided who you're gonna send down to South America to check
up on this unknown hirer of the mercenaries?" Coop asked.

Ben glanced at Mike Post. "Yeah. I'm going to send you guys. Mike here
has been working on some papers showing you to be disgruntled ex-Army
people from here and the USA. With your obvious skills, I don't think
they'll have too many second thoughts about hiring you for the mercenary
forces."

35

"You mean all of us are going to go in undercover?" Jersey asked, her
eyes lighting up at the prospect of action.

"Not exactly," Ben replied. "Corrie and Beth will go with you partway.
They'll break off just short of the mercenary camp and set up a
communications post in one of the villages nearby so Corrie can keep
them apprised of the situation."

"What good will that do us if we get in trouble?" Harley asked.

"My son Buddy is going to be there with Corrie and Beth, along with a
squad of scouts, ready to go in on a moment's notice to pull you out if
need be."

"That's a lot of folks to have hanging around without the meres finding
out about," Hammer said.

"Mike," Ben said.

Mike Post pulled a sheaf of papers from his briefcase and glanced at
them. "The meres' headquarters are on an island off Brazil, near Sao
Paulo. It's called Ilha de Sao Sabastiao and it's about twenty miles
square. I've had intel do some research, and there's a small village on
the coast south of there called Santos. It's pretty remote aid there is
no real communication with the other cities in the area. The team will
be sent there on a freighter we've leased from Rio de Janeiro, which is
about a hundred miles to the north."

"You don't think twenty new faces will cause attention in Santos?"
Harley asked skeptically.

Mike shrugged. "Not as much as you'd think. The town, though small, has
an active port and is always full of seamen coming and going from
freighters that run up and down the coast. We'll have the freighter
outfitted with state-of-the-art communications equipment and the scouts
will be dressed as ordinary seamen."

Hammer grinned at Harley, both of whom were ex-scouts. "I'd like to see
them make a scout look like a scruffy sailor."

"I agree, the cover won't be perfect," Mike said, "but hopefully, it
won't have to last too long. The team's mission is to

36

get in and out quick as soon as they find out who's heading the meres
and how dangerous they really are."

"Hammer," Ben interrupted, "I know you and Jersey are both fluent in
Spanish, but they speak Portuguese in Brazil. Mike has arranged for a
language tutor to work with you two for the few days it'll take for us
to set this up. By then, you should be able to get by in the native tongue."

Hammer looked at Jersey and winked. "Good. I was really impressed with
the way Jersey operated in Mexico. I'm looking forward to working
closely with her on this mission."

Jersey stared back at the scout, wondering if he was making an oblique
pass at her and if she should shut him down now or later.

She was saved from making a decision when Ben stood up. "All right,
guys. Mike has some info from intel for you to study while you get your
gear together. I'm leaving the choice of weapons in Harley's and
Hammer's hands, as usual."

37 Four

The trip to Rio de Janeiro was uneventful. There, Ben's team met up with
a contingent of NaVy SEALS who worked with Buddy Raines's scouts to man
the: tramp freighter they would use as cover on their trip to Santos on
the Brazilian coast.

Buddy introduced the leader of the SEALS to the team. "This is Captain
Matt Stryker, guys, and his men are going to be teaching us how to look
and act like real sailors on this little jaunt."

Coop stuck his hand out and the two men shook, followed by Harley,
Jersey, Hammer, and the others.

Stryker looked at them. "I understand you are going into the meres' camp
undercover as mercenaries for hire," Matt said.

Harley nodded. "Yeah."

Stryker grinned, looking the six-foot-four redheaded giant up and down.
"Well, you certainly look the part."

Harley glanced around at the SEALs team. "You men do too," he observed,
taking in their ragged denim shirts and jeans and worn sneakers. "I'd
never take you for Navy men."

Stryker smiled. "That's the whole point, Harley. We're supposed to be
low-level sailors on this rust bucket Ben Raines provided as our cover."
He looked around at the dilapidated ship. "I just hope we don't run into
any heavy weather."

Coop's face screwed up in alarm. "You mean it might sink?" Coop was a
notoriously poor sailor. He'd been rumored to get seasick in a swimming
pool.

38

"Not to worry, Coop," Stryker said. "It's a relatively short run down to
Santos and the seas shouldn't be too rough, short of a tropical storm."

"There aren't any in the forecast, are there?" Coop asked, letting his
eyes roam across the horizon, looking for clouds or other signs of storms.

"Naw. The meteorologists tell me it's gonna be smooth as a baby's
backside for the next week."

"Good," Coop said, unconsciously feeling his pocket where he kept a
bottle of dramamine Doc Chase had given him.

"Don't worry, Coop," Jersey said, a smirk on her face. "I brought along
an extra pillow for your knees to rest on as you hang your head over the
side while you feed the fishes."

"Thanks, Jersey," he said sarcastically, "that's the old team spirit."

"While your boys get us cast off," Harley said, "I'll take my team to
the meeting room and go over our weapons."

Harley stood before the team with an array of weapons on the table
before him. "We're pretty much going with the same armament we used
against Perro Loco our last time in the field," he said.

He reached down and picked up a small machine gun from the table.
"Jersey, you and Anna will be carrying these Mini-Uzis. Fully loaded,
they weigh only four kilograms, have forty-round detachable box
magazines, and can fire six hundred fifty rounds per minute on full
automatic."

He put the machine gun down and picked up a shotgun with a pistol grip
on it. "Coop, Hammer, and I will be carrying the SPAS Model 12. SPAS, as
you probably remember, stands for Special Purpose Automatic Shotgun.
It's twelve-gauge, weighs four-point-two kilograms, has a seven-shot
tubular magazine, and on full automatic can fire two hundred forty
rounds per minute." He gestured at a couple of boxes of ammunition. "As
usual, we will have a variety of slugs available,

39

from light bird shot to heavy metal slugs that'll penetrate steel plate
at a hundred yards."

Coop interrupted. "How about side arms? Are we gonna go with the
Berettas again?"

Harley nodded. "Yeah, as you know, I prefer the Beretta Model 93R over
the old Colt .45's. It fires a nine-millimeter parabellum bullet, has a
twenty-round magazine, and can fire single-shot or in three-shot
automatic bursts. Remember, on automatic fire, a small lever drops down
in front of the trigger guard for the left hand to grab and steady your
aim." He held up a metal box of cartridges. "I want the entire team to
spend the time on our voyage down to Santos practicing with these weapons."

"You don't think we got enough practice using them against Perro Loco
last time?" Jersey asked.

Harley glanced at her. "Yeah, but we're gonna have to show whoever's in
charge of the meres that we're worth hiring, and that may mean a test of
just how good we are with our weapons."

"I'd think they'll be hiring anybody who's warm," Coop said.

"You're probably right, Coop," Harley explained, "but I don't want us to
be grouped with the rest of the grunts. We need to be with the elite
troops if we're going to get any useful intel out of this trip."

Jersey glanced at Coop, and couldn't resist one more jibe. "Harley, do
these guns shoot okay if they're covered with vomit? 'Cause otherwise,
Coop won't be able to practice till we get off the boat."

"Keep it up, Jerse," Coop said, his face turning red.

"Oh, I don't have any problem keeping it up, Coop, unlike what some of
your women friends tell me about you."

"Okay, guys, that's enough," Harley said, unable to keep a smile off his
face. "Let's get our gear together and get settled into our cabins."

"Put my cabin as far away from Coop as possible," Jersey

40

said, grinning. "The sound of retching keeps me awake at night."

"Since you have no male friends, it's a sure thing nothing else will
keep you awake," Coop shot back.

Hammer stood up, a sheet of paper in his hand. "Here are the cabin
assignments." He handed the paper to Jersey. "And, Jersey, you got your
wish. Your cabin is on the opposite end of the corridor from Coop's."

Jersey glanced at the paper and noticed Hammer had put her in the room
next to him. She looked at him, but his face was straight, with no hint
of any ulterior motive in the assignments. She wondered again if she was
going to have trouble with him coming on to her . . . not that it would
be all that hard to take, she thought, noticing again his heavily
muscled body and handsome face. In fact, it might not be bad at all.

Coop was miserable. In fact, if he'd had his side arm with him as he
hung his head over the rail and vomited repeatedly into the choppy waves
of the Atlantic, he would most assuredly have used it to end his misery.

To make matters worse, the rest of the team seemed to have no problem
whatsoever with the roughness of the seas. Jersey would stand behind him
and offer helpful suggestions, such as why not eat some greasy bacon and
eggs so the fish would have something substantial to eat rather than the
pure bile he was pouring on them with some regularity.

Other suggestions, such as watching the shoreline, barely visible on the
horizon, or fixing his gaze on clouds overhead, seemed to do nothing but
make his misery worse.

Finally, just before lunch, Matt Stryker approached the gray-faced Coop,
still on his knees at the rail.

"Come on, Coop. You've got to put something in your stomach or you're
going to be too weak for the mission."

Coop glanced back over his shoulder. "Are you kidding? It wouldn't stay
there for more than a minute."

41

Stryker squatted down next to him. "Listen, I've got some suppositories
in my duffel bag that will help. Phenergan will take most of the
vomiting away, though you'll probably still be nauseated."

"Suppositories?" Coop asked weakly.

"Yeah. You couldn't keep a pill down, so it's either suppositories or a
shot."

Coop, who hated needles almost as bad as traveling by sea, shook his
head. "I'll take the suppository."

Stryker put his hand under Coop's arm and helped him to his feet As they
walked toward Stryker's cabin, Jersey began to walk alongside them.

"Tell you what, Coop," she said, smiling broadly. "Since you were so
nice to me when we were marooned in the jungle last year, I'll be glad
to insert the suppository for you."

He cut his eyes to her, sweat beading his forehead. "No thanks, Jerse,"
he mumbled.

"Really, it wouldn't be any trouble at all," she said sweetly.

He managed to give her one of his trademark smirks. "You just want to
get my pants down, hussy," he said, "so you can have your wanton way
with me."

Jersey gave a mock shudder. "I think I'll pass, Coop. Puke on my face
has never been much of a turn-on for me in the way of foreplay."

"Foreplay?" he rejoined. "What's that?"

"Oh, I forgot for a minute, you're a man. Naturally, you don't know the
first thing about pleasing a woman."

Coop jerked his head toward Hammer, who was watching them from a
distance. "Why don't you head on back to Hammer, Jerse? From the looks
of things, he's got some ideas along that line for you."

Jersey raised her eyebrows. "Is that jealousy I hear in your voice, Coop?"

He hung his head and dry-heaved a time or two. "No, dear, it's nausea at
the thought of you with your clothes off trying to tell someone how to
make love in your own bossy way."

42

"Well!" Jersey said, irritated by Stryker's smile at Coop's statement.
"As if you'd know anything about how I make love."

"The thought never crossed my mind, Jerse. I'm more into women a bit
more . . . feminine," Coop flung back at her as he and Stryker entered
Stryker's cabin and shut the door behind them.

Jersey whirled on her heels and stalked back out onto the deck,
muttering, "Feminine, huh? I'll show him feminine."

She walked over to stand at the rail next to Hammer, who was looking out
over the sea, watching dolphins as they raced through the bow wave of
the freighter.

He glanced at her, then said, "Something I'd like to know."

"Yeah?" she replied without looking at him.

"Is there . . . anything between you and Cooper?"

Now she did look at him, a slight smile on the corner of her lips. "Not
now, not ever," she said. "Why do you ask?"

"Just wondering if I'd be wasting my time if I gave it a shot."

She looked back out over the sea, excited by the closeness of the man.
"You'll never know unless you fry, Hammer."

Anna and Harley were sitting in the wardroom of the freighter, drinking
coffee. The mug looked like a demitasse cup in Harley's huge hands.

"Is it true you're descended from the Karankawa Indians?" Anna asked.

Harley nodded. "Yeah, indirectly. They interbred with some prisoners
they took from a tribe of Mexican Indians who were descended from the
Vikings, which explains the red hair and blue eyes."

"Is it true the Karankawa were cannibals?"

He shook his head. "Not really. Like the Aztecs, they would occasionally
eat the heart or brain of an enemy they respected, in order to capture
their cunning or bravery, but it was more

43

of a ritual thing, like Catholics eating the crackers and drinking the
wine which symbolize the body and blood of Christ."

She smiled at him. "So, you've never . . ."

He laughed. "No. I've never been that hungry ... at least not yet."

They were interrupted by the rest of the crew filing in for lunch.

Anna saw Coop walking slowly into the room, his face still gray and his
eyes sunken and hollow-looking.

"Coop," she called, patting the seat beside her. "Come sit over here."

He sat down as she reached over and poured him a cup of coffee. "You up
for this?" she asked.

He nodded. "Yeah. The medicine Stryker gave me seems to be working, at
least for now."

"Once you get something in your stomach, the sickness will pass," Harley
advised, a sympathetic look on his face.

"I hope so," Coop said. "I feel like such a damn fool."

"Hey, man," Harley said, "seasickness is nothing to be ashamed of. I
heard back during the Second World War one of the admirals of the fleet
suffered from it, and it didn't keep him from kicking Jap ass."

"Really?" Coop said, his expression brightening a little.

"Sure enough," Harley replied. "Matter of fact, my first few weeks in
jump training I was sick as a dog from air sickness, so I know what
you're going through."

"How'd you get over it?" Coop asked.

Harley shrugged. "With time, you just get used to it, I guess. Maybe
being shot at while you're flying takes your mind off your stomach."

Coop grinned. "If that's true, you have my permission to unload a few
rounds in my direction next time you see me at the rail."

44 Five

Bruno Bottger sat behind his desk, drinking his German wine, as Sergei
Bergman and Herman Bundt gave their report on the New World Order
mercenaries' readiness for battle.

Bergman, who had been with Bottger since the African campaign and was in
charge of the meres' training facility, took a deep drink of his scotch
whiskey, then dipped the end of his cigar in it before taking a puff. As
he let smoke trail from his nostrils, he shook his head. "I don't know,
Bruno," he said in answer to Bottger's question about the meres. "We've
had plenty of men answer your ads in Soldier of Fortune magazine, but
only about half of them are really battle-experienced. The rest are
wannabes who are dirt poor and looking for an easy way to make some money."

Sergeant Herman Bundt, Bergman's second in command, sneered over his
bottle of beer. "Those can be useful too, Sergei," he said. "We can
always use them for cannon fodder if the need arises."

"That's true, Herman," Bergman agreed, "but at some point, we're going
to need men who can give as well as follow orders. My experienced line
officers are too few to be everywhere at once, and it doesn't do any
good to have good weapons and materiel if the men don't know how or when
to use them."

"I thought we were on schedule with our training," Bruno said, a scowl
on his face.

"We were, Bruno," Bergman said, "but the schedule was

45

advanced by over a year when President Osterman offered you the chance
to attack the SUSA earlier than you'd planned."

"Well, then we need to accelerate the training," Bruno said, as if his
ordering it would make it possible. "This chance is too good to pass up.
That crazy bitch Osterman has practically given us the keys to her
country as well as the means to defeat that bastard Raines and his
mongrel country. Whatever it takes to get more men who are acceptable
must be done. Increase the ads if you need to or offer more money, but
get me some troops that are worthy of the New World Order."

Bergman finished off his scotch and stuck his cigar in the corner of him
mouth as he got up from his chair. "I'll do what I can, Bruno, but don't
expect miracles."

"That is exactly what I do expect, Sergei," Bruno said, his expression
dangerous, "and you know the price of failure."

Bergman glanced at Rudolf Hessner standing off to the side, wishing
their leader's second in command would try to talk some sense into him.
"Yes, sir," he said, snapping off a quick salute and leaving the room,
Bundt right behind him.

"Do you think Bergman is up to the task?" Bruno asked Hessner.

Rudolf nodded. "Do not let Sergei's trying to warn you of the facts
mislead you into thinking he is not fully committed to our war, Bruno,"
he said. "Sergei is one of the best men I've ever seen at motivating and
training mercenaries. He will get the job done if it is at all possible
to do it."

"He'd better," Bruno growled. He rubbed the scar tissue on his face with
his fingertips. "I've waited a long time to pay Ben Raines back for what
he did to us in Africa, and I don't intend to let him off the hook now."

Sergei Bergman walked out of the villa and got into his personal HumVee,
waiting only a moment as Herman Bundt followed. He started the engine
and squealed the tires as he raced out of the driveway toward the
mercenaries' training fa-

46

cility on the other end of the island. "Goddamn generals, they're all
the same," he muttered to himself. "They think if they order it, it will
magically happen, like I'm supposed to make good soldiers out of
riffraff overnight."

He drove over winding roads through heavily jungled terrain until he
arrived at the camp. He pulled to a stop and sat in his vehicle for a
moment watching his officers put the meres through their training exercises.

Shaking his head at the inexperience some of the men showed, he climbed
down and walked to the officers' billet to check and see if any
worthwhile candidates had come in recently.

Sergeant Herman Bundt walked around to sit behind his desk. He pushed a
button on the intercom and said, "Send in the new arrivals."

A moment later, a group of men and women stood at attention before him.

Bundt glanced up and smiled at Bergman. "These are the latest arrivals,
Sergei," he said. "From their records, I think you'll be pleasantly
surprised.

"I hope they're better than the last bunch," Bergman replied, looking
over the new recruits. There were a couple that looked interesting. Two
men who were well over six feet tall and had the look of battle-hardened
veterans about them, along with another man who was leaner and less
muscled, but whose eyes were hard as flint.

"What have we got here?" Bergman asked, shifting his gaze from the men
to two women who were standing with them. "Are these women applying for
jobs as cooks, or hostesses?"

The taller of the two women, a pretty, dark-haired female who looked as
if she had some indio blood in her veins, turned her eyes to him. Her
look made the hair on the back of his neck stir, and he thought maybe
he'd misjudged this one. She certainly looked dangerous enough. He
glanced at her companion, a fresh-faced younger woman with close-cropped
blond hair and a trim build. This one looks much too soft to

47

47

be a mercenary, he thought. She looks more suited to sharing a man's bed
than a foxhole.

"These applicants all have battle experience, Sergei," Bundt commented,
looking down at the papers the recruits had filled out. "First with
Claire Osterman's Army in the U.S., then with Raines's forces in the SUSA."

"You've all fought together before?" Bergman asked, waiting to see who
answered as the leader of the small group.

The tall redheaded man turned to speak. "Yes, sir," he said crisply.

"Why did you switch alliance from the U.S. to the SUSA?" Bergman asked,
stepping in front of the desk and sitting his hips on the desktop.

The red-haired giant shrugged. "More money, less hassle with poor
officers who were trying to get us killed."

"So, money, not ideology, is what is important to you, huh?" Bergman asked.

"Staying alive to spend the money is the most important thing, sir. From
what we've seen, Raines's forces don't have the will to win this war, or
they'd have finished Perro Loco off in Mexico when they had the chance.
We prefer to be on the winning side, for all kinds of reasons."

Bergman nodded. He could understand that, all right. It was the main
reason he'd decided to fight with Bruno Bottger himself.

"I don't have any quarrel with that," Bergman said, "if you can earn
your keep. Just how good are you?"

The big man's lips curled in a half smile. "Good enough to take anyone
you've got with you now."

Bergman pursed his lips as he thought. He liked this man's confidence.
In fact, it reminded him of himself when he was younger and full of piss
and vinegar.

"Herman," Bergman said, "bring me those laser flak jackets. We're gonna
have a little war game action today."

48

William W. Johnstone

Bergman handed out the jackets to Harley Reno and his team.

"What are these?" Coop asked as he examined the strange-looking garment.

"Specially constructed flak jackets with laser-receivers built in,"
Bergman answered. "They're used with these special laser rifles. If
you're hit with a beam, the jacket begins to beep and you're classified
as a kill."

Harley slipped his jacket on and took a laser rifle from Bergman. "So,
what's the deal?"

Bergman thought for a moment. "I think I'll send you and your team out
into the jungle. Give you about an hour head start, then send my best
team of commandos after you. Whoever comes back with the most live men
is the winner."

"And if we lose?" Jersey asked.

"Then obviously, we won't be needing your services," Bergman answered
with a grim smile.

Harley started to leave, then stopped and faced Bergman. "You want us to
kill your team or bring them back alive as prisoners?"

Bergman laughed. "You're awfully confident you won't be the ones brought
back."

Harley shrugged. "Let's just say we capture the entire force. What then?"

"I'll make you my lead commando group and send the others back for more
training," Bergman said, his expression showing he doubted very much
that would happen.

Once out of sight of the camp, Harley shifted into double time,
practically jogging as he moved through dense jungle overgrowth as if it
weren't there. It was all the rest of the team could do to keep up with
him as he moved silently and swiftly down narrow jungle trails.

After thirty minutes, he stopped when he found an area he liked.
Squatting, he and Hammer stuck sticks in the soft earth

49

just off the trail and strung thin, almost invisible wire across the
path. The wire they connected to slam-bangs, percussion grenades that
exploded with a loud bang and a brilliant flash of light when triggered.

Harley then moved back down the trail the way they'd come, whispering
directions to Coop and Jersey as he positioned them in undergrowth off
the trail and handed them a handful of plastic tie-downs, such as cops
use in place of handcuffs.

Taking Anna by the arm, he and Hammer ran on ahead, jumping over the
wire as they passed it.

Fifteen minutes passed, and then a group of ten men appeared on the
trail, passing between Jersey and Coop without seeing them. Evidently,
Bergman hadn't kept his word about giving them an hour's head start,
Coop thought as he ducked down behind his bush and waited for the scout
group to pass.

The leader of the commandos, a tall black man with broad shoulders and
old burn scars on his face, walked in a semi-crouch, sweeping his laser
rifle back and forth as he moved silently up the trail.

The men behind him were good, for they kept their attention on what they
were doing, with little chatter or unnecessary talk. They were strung
out in single file, five yards between them, as they walked.

When the leader tripped the wire, causing the grenades to explode, all
ten men hit the dirt facedown, yelling and groaning from the pain in
their ears.

Coop and Jersey jumped from their cover, reversed their K-Bar assault
knives, and coldcocked the last two men in the line in the back of their
heads, knocking them unconscious. Then Coop and Jersey slipped back
under cover.

Up ahead, just before a bend in the trail, Anna stepped into view and
fired off several rounds with her M-16 laser rifle, making sure not to
hit anyone.

The laser rifles were fitted with blank cartridges so they would sound
like real combat weapons.

The black leader managed to get off two rounds, which

50

missed, before Anna disappeared around the bend and out of sight.

"Come on, men, they're up ahead!" he yelled, jumping to his feet and
taking off in pursuit. His men scrambled to their feet and followed him,
none noticing that the last two men in the group remained facedown on
the jungle ground.

After the group ran out of sight, Jersey and Coop emerged from hiding
and wrapped the hands and feet of the unconscious men with the plastic
tie-downs, then followed the scouts up the trail.

As the commandos rounded the bend in the trail, two dark figures dropped
from trees next to the path onto the last two men in the group, slapping
the back of their necks with vicious karate chops as they landed.

Jersey and Coop caught up with them just as Hammer and Harley finished
securing the men's arms and legs with tie-downs.

"Four down, six to go," Harley grunted with a smile as he tightened the
final tie-down.

"What about Anna?" Jersey asked.

"She's okay," Hammer said, consulting a map of the region Bergman had
given them. "She's waiting for us up ahead, near where the trail splits
and goes in two different directions."

"How'll we get to her?" Coop asked. "The commandos are between us and her."

"We go this way through the jungle," Harley answered, pointing to the
left. "The left-hand trail bends back this way and we can cut straight
across and meet her ahead of the enemy force."

Coop glanced at what looked like impenetrable jungle. "We're going
through that?" he asked.

Harley smiled. "No pain, no gain," he said, as he melted into the
undergrowth.

51

Ronald Watanabe, the leader of the commandos, stopped and looked behind
him. "Where are the others?" he asked.

His men glanced around. Lieutenant Johnson, his second in command, shook
his head. "We're missing four men, sir."

"I can see that, you imbecile," Watanabe almost shouted. "Where are they?"

Johnson, sweat beading on his forehead in the thick humidity of the
jungle, shrugged. "I ddn't know, sir. If they'd been shot, we would've
heard their flak jackets go off."

"Damn!" Watanabe exclaimed. "These recruits are better than I thought.
Keep together and let's move slower. I don't want to lose any more men."

They moved less than a hundred yards before coming to a wide, shallow
river flowing sluggishly through the undergrowth.

"Be careful, men," Watanabe said as he held his rifle over his head and
waded out through rushes and weeds into the stream. "These rivers are
full of crocs and snakes."

On the opposite bank, Anna stepped out and fired a quick burst, then
turned and ran away again.

"Go, go, go!" Watanabe shouted, splashing and firing his M-16 as he
struggled against the slow current to cross the river.

With his men's attention in front of them, none noticed the four figures
rise silently out of the water behind them, bamboo breathing tubes in
their mouths.

Four hands rose and fell, knocking four more commandos unconscious and
taking them back into the rushes at the water's edge.

Watanabe and Johnson scrambled out of the water onto the opposite bank,
their rifles held before them, looking for the elusive Anna, who was
nowhere to be seen.

"Goddamn!" Watanabe said, wiping water out of his eyes as he turned to
check his men.

"Shit!" he almost yelled, seeing no one behind him except

52

Johnson. "What the hell's going on here?" he asked his lieutenant.

Johnson looked around, his eyes widening in fear at the sight of the
empty water behind them. "You think crocs got 'em?" he asked.

"If it wasn't, those bastards are gonna wish they had been eaten when I
get through with 'em."

Watanabe slammed a fresh clip in his M-16 and began to move up the
trail, his eyes searching the bushes for enemies, his finger itchy on
the trigger.

Johnson followed, his head swiveling as he continually checked his back
trail.

Twenty minutes later, they heard what sounded like the deep growl of a
jungle cat, followed by the high-pitched scream of a woman in danger.

"Shit!" Johnson said. "That sounded like a panther, an' all we got with
us are blanks."

Watanabe nodded. They'd lost two men to the big cats during training,
and he wanted no part of facing one without live ammo in his rifle.

"Let's get the hell out of here," he said. "I ain't gonna get killed for
no training exercise."

They began to jog back down the trail, looking back over their shoulders
as the sound of a panther again rang out through the jungle.

As they rounded a bend, Harley and Hammer jerked on a vine they'd laid
across the trail, sending Johnson and Watanabe sprawling onto their
faces. Before they could look up, they were knocked unconscious by blows
to the back of their heads by Jersey and Coop.

Anna strolled up to the group just as they were finishing placing the
tie-downs on their victims.

"Jesus, Anna," Coop said. "That cry sounded so real it made the hair on
the back of my neck stand up."

She smiled. "Fooled you, huh?"

"Damn straight!" Coop said.

53

Harley stood up from immobilizing Johnson and Watanabe. "It fooled them
too. Now, let's get back to camp and see what Herr Bergman has to say
about our performance."

"Are we just going to leave these men out here in the jungle with their
hands and feet tied?" Anna asked, a worried look on her face.

"Yep," Harley answered. "Maybe it'll teach 'em not to fuck with us in
the future."

"That's if the snakes and jungle cats don't eat them first," Coop said,
looking around at the dense undergrowth with a shudder.

54 Six

Otis Warner and General Joe Winter sat down across from Ben Raines in
his office.

"Good morning, gentlemen," Ben said. "Can I offer you some coffee?"

"No, sir," Otis said. "We've already eaten breakfast."

Ben leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands behind his head.
"Then, what can I do for you?"

"We want to know what you plan to do about Claire Os-terman's illegal
takeover of the USA," Otis said, a challenging note in his voice.

Ben smiled and shrugged. "Nothing."

"But, General Raines," Winter began.

"Hold on a moment, General," Ben interrupted. "In the first place, what
Claire did was not illegal. As far as I've been able to find out, she is
merely performing the job to which she was legally elected by the people
of the United States."

"But . . ." Otis said.

Now Ben leaned forward, his elbows on his desk. "No buts, Otis. The only
illegal act I'm aware of is the one in which you and your general here
attempted to assassinate the elected leader of your country and take
over her position."

"But, General Raines, we did it for the good of the country ... and the
world. You know what Claire was up to. If she'd stayed in office she
would have continued the war against you and the SUSA until the United
States was completely destroyed," Otis said.

55

"The woman is a complete psychopath!" Winter added, a look of extreme
distaste on his face.

Ben smiled and nodded. "Oh, I agree with you, gentlemen, and I must say
I agreed completely with what you did when you took her out and took
over her presidency. But, now that she's managed to take it back, it's
not my job to rid your country of its elected leader. If the people of
the U.S. are too spoiled by the welfare state she's set up to see what
kind of woman is leading them, then I think they deserve what they get."

"It's not the people's fault, General," Otis said. "She has a massive
propaganda machine in place that misleads the people as to what is going
on in the world."

"Bullshit!" Ben exclaimed. "President Lincoln said it best over a
hundred and fifty years ago . . . you can't fool all of the people all
of the time-not unless they want to be fooled."

"What do you mean, want to be fooled?" General Winter asked, a puzzled
look on his face.

"You know exactly what I mean, General. In your country, men and women
don't have to work if they don't want to, 'cause your government is
predicated on the principle that everyone is completely equal and
deserves the same share of the country's wealth."

"What is wrong with equality?" Otis asked belligerently.

"Nothing," Ben said shortly, "except it's not true now and never has
been. Men are not created equal, except under the law. There are workers
and there are slugs who prefer to live off the sweat of other people.
Your country has chosen to treat them all as equals, and that is why
your productivity has fallen to record low levels since Osterman and her
socialist/democratic government took over."

"What do you do with your citizens who are unable to work?" Otis asked.
"Let them starve?"

Ben shook his head. "No. Those who because of sickness or ill health
cannot work are taken care of. But those who refuse to work out of
laziness or perverseness, are not. Usually, when they get hungry enough,
they find the inner strength to

56

go back to work. We haven't had anyone voluntarily starve themselves to
death since I've been here."

"That's barbaric," Otis said.

"No, Mr. Warner, it's realistic. It's the reason my country, a tenth the
size of yours, outproduces yours every year and has kicked your butt
every time you've attacked us."

General Winter laid his hand on Otis's arm to shut him up. "We're
getting off the subject here, General," he said to Ben. "Do you plan to
help us get rid of Osterman or not?"

Ben once again leaned back in his chair and tried to calm himself. He
always got overexcited when he heard the same tired old arguments
supporting socialism, a form of government that had never in the history
of the world worked for very long.

"Of course I'll help you, General Winter," he said. "I will give you all
the logistic support you require to attempt to take your government back
from the crazy lady."

"What do you mean, logistical support?" Otis asked.

"I'll see that you are taken back to the U.S. and set up with funds and
equipment to start a revolutionary movement within the country. If, as
you say, the people are truly tired of the way Osterman has been running
the country, you shouldn't have any problem getting recruits to join
your movement. But, on the other hand, if the citizens are satisfied
with the status quo, then you will fail, as you should."

Otis glanced at General Winter and shrugged. "That's fair enough."

"Good. Then I'll arrange to have one of my pilots fly you into the
country under their radar and put you down wherever you want, along with
some money and whatever else you need to get started."

After Warner and Winter left his office, Ben asked his secretary to get
Mike Post to his office as soon as possible. Mike entered a few moments
later. "Hey, Ben. What's up?"

57

"I've changed my mind about the supplies Osterman is sending down to
Perro Loco."

Mike grinned. "You mean you've decided to take out the freighter?"

Ben pursed his lips. "Not exactly. That would cause too much political
backlash between us and Mexico."

"Then just what've you got in mind?"

"I thought we might send a SEAL team in, under cover of darkness."

"Boss, it doesn't matter if we sink the freighter with a missile or with
a SEAL team," Post argued. "The president of Mexico is still gonna be
pissed off."

"I don't want the SEAL team to sink the ship," Ben said. "Get them in
here and I'll explain."

Captain Michael Kevin Fitzpatrick had been sailing on ships for most of
his fifty-one years. Called Fitz by everyone on shipboard, he had
promised to share with the crew the bonus Claire Osterman was paying
them to sail into Mexico. They'd been loaded down with aircraft,
munitions, vehicles, and just about every other type of war weapon he'd
ever heard of--and some he hadn't-at Portsmith, Virginia.

The plan was for them to sail around the southern coast of Florida, turn
west, and cut across the Gulf of Mexico toward the Mexican Navy base on
the eastern coast of Mexico. When Fitz had initially refused to put his
ship in danger by sailing into a war zone, the president had laughed and
told him she had it on good authority there would be no attack.

"The Mexican president doesn't have the balls to do his job," she'd said
with a sneer. "He thinks if he ignores us, we'll go away quietly and not
bother him anymore, the stupid bastard."

"The Mexican president may be chickenshit, but Ben Raines isn't," Fitz
had countered. "How do I know he won't send his planes after us?"

58

"Raines will do what President Jeffreys tells him to do," Claire had
said, "and my spies say he's ordered Raines to lay off for the present."

After some haggling back and forth, Claire finally promised Fitzpatrick
and his crew a bonus of fifty thousand dollars for the trip, if they got
the materiel to Mexico safely.

It was just after midnight when Lieutenant Jerry Roberts, who went by
the nickname Water Dog, loaded his five-man crew of Navy SEALS into a
Zodiac fitted with an electric motor. They were all dressed in rubber
wet suits, and had Scuba gear ready in the boat, along with six limpet
mines and other assorted assault weapons.

The moon was covered by a scattering of low-lying clouds, and there
wasn't much ambient light to spoil their attack on the freighter they'd
picked up on radar from the patrol boat that had carried them into the
Gulf of Mexico from Corpus Christi, Texas.

The motor hummed as it pushed the Zodiac over the six-foot swells of the
Gulf at five knots. Unless the men on the freighter were very alert,
they'd never know what hit them.

The attack had been planned for the hours between midnight and four in
the morning, the dog watch when men were typically least alert.

The Zodiac homed in on the ship at a forty-five-degree angle until the
rubber sides of the small craft brushed up against the rusted iron of
the freighter.

Tommy Harris leaned over the bow of the Zodiac and affixed a magnetic
clamp to the iron sides of the freighter, letting it hold the Zodiac in
place alongside the ship as it slowly made its way through the darkness
toward Mexico.

The SEALs donned their Scuba gear and made ready to drop over the side,
the most dangerous part of the mission. Each man had a line attached
around his waist to the Zodiac, for they were going to be working in
almost total darkness

59

very close to the huge twin propellers of the freighter, which would try
to pull them into their turbulence.

"Remember," Water Dog advised in a hoarse whisper before they dropped
into the sea, "we need to make sure the mines take out the propeller
shaft and the rudders without making a hole in the ship's belly. We
don't want to sink the bastard, just disable it."

His men nodded, their grins visible behind the Plexiglas of their masks.
This was just the sort of dangerous task they lived for, and had trained
for months to carry out.

Once in the water under the ship, where they couldn't be seen from
above, the men snapped on underwater lights and fanned out, kicking
furiously with their fins against the turbulence of the props.

Three of the men swam toward the port rudder and propeller shaft, and
three toward the starboard ones. Once in place, they clung to the metal
like so many water bugs, looking tiny against the size of the propellers.

Limpet mines were taken from pouches and placed against the metal shaft
and rudders, the magnetic clamps in the mines holding them fast.

Finally, when he saw all of his men ready, Roberts blinked his light
three times, a signal to set the mines.

Each man reached up and twisted a knob on his mine in three complete
circles, setting the timers for a forty-five-minute delay.

Now came the trickiest part of the mission, trying to fight against the
turbulence and return to the Zodiac. Even the strongest swimmer couldn't
make headway against the pull of the big bronze propellers, so the SEALS
pulled themselves along their lines toward the Zodiac.

All went well until the line connected to Harry Parrish got snagged on a
cluster of barnacles growing on the bottom of the ship. When he tried to
jerk it loose, the razor-sharp edge of one of the barnacles sliced
through the nylon line as if it were kite string.

60

Water Dog turned his head when he heard Parrish scream, just in time to
see his body tumbling head over heels through the water, unable to fight
the awful pull of the propellers.

Water Dog reached down to disconnect his own line and go to Parrish's
aid just as the SEALS's body hit the propellers and was shredded into a
thousand pieces, sending scarlet blossoms of blood that looked black as
ink into the water.

The lieutenant choked back bile as he turned back toward the Zodiac and
continued on his way, thankful that he'd only lost one man to this job.

Captain Fitzpatrick came out of a dead sleep when he felt the jolt as
the limpet mines detonated, followed by the sudden horrible vibration
that shook the ship the way a cat shakes a mouse.

Fitz jumped out of his bunk and rushed to the phone on his wall. He
dialed the engine room and shouted, "Shut the engines!"

After slipping into his clothes, he rushed up the metal ladder to the
deck of the ship and leaned over the aft-side rail, trying to see what
was wrong with the propellers.

As he stared into the inky blackness, the captain of the watch ran up to
his side.

"What the hell happened?" Fitz asked. "What did we hit?"

"I dunno, Cap'n," Tom Johnson answered. "There was nothing on radar or
sonar to indicate a reef or another ship. We were just cruising along
when suddenly there was this bump and everything went to hell."

Fitz glared at him. "There aren't any reefs in the middle of the Gulf of
Mexico, you idiot! The only thing we could have hit was another ship."

"Cap'n, I promise you, there hasn't been another ship anywhere near for
over an hour."

Fitz turned to another sailor standing nearby. "Jimmy, get

61

below and make sure we're not taking on water, see if the hold was
breached."

As the freighter slowed without power and began to drift on the
prevailing winds, rocking heavily as the swells hit it broadside, the
captain shook his head.

"The only thing I can think is you must have run over a sailboat too
small to show up on radar and fouled the propellers and rudders," he
said to a skeptical Johnson.

"What do we do now, Captain?" Johnson asked.

Fitz shrugged. "We'll just have to radio for assistance and hope we
don't drift all the way to Cuba before it gets here."

"But, Captain, there ain't no way they're gonna be able to fix our
rudders and props at sea," Johnson said.

Fitz frowned. "I know. It looks like we may have to be towed all the way
to Mexico."

"But the port at Corpus Christi is closer."

Fitzpatrick glared at the seaman. "You really want us to make port at
Corpus Christi fully loaded with war materiel for an army they're at war
with?"

"Uh, I guess not," Johnson replied.

"Good, then get on the horn to Claire Osterman's office and tell them
what's happened. If they want this shit delivered, they'll just have to
get someone out here to tow us the rest of the way."

62 Seven

Claire Osterman was in bed with Herb Knoff when her phone rang. She
reached across his body to pick it up.

"This better be damned important!" she said harshly into the mouthpiece.

After listening a moment, she fairly screamed, "That son of a bitch
Raines is behind this, I know it!"

She listened another few seconds, then slammed the phone down.

Herb, his breathing slowing a bit from the exertion of a few minutes
earlier, asked, "What's wrong, Claire?"

"Our freighter to Mexico has been sabotaged," she answered. "It's
drifting dead in the water toward Cuba."

"Raines?"

She stared at him for a second, then shook her head. "The captain says
not. He thinks they ran over a sailboat and damaged his rudders and
propellers."

Herb's eyebrows knitted. "That doesn't sound very likely, does it?"

"No. I'm sure as hell that Raines had something to do with this, but
without proof, it won't do any good to argue about it."

"So what now?"

She shrugged as she pulled on a robe to cover her nakedness. "I guess
we'll have to hire another boat to go and pull him the rest of the way
to Mexico."

63

Herb frowned. "That's gonna be kinda expensive, isn't it? I thought the
treasury was down to nothing."

She gave an evil smile. "It is."

"But, you've already promised Captain Fitzpatrick fifty grand to take
the stuff there."

"Who says he's going to live to collect any of it? I cabled Perro Loco
yesterday and told him he could have the freighter for his own use after
it docks. All he has to do is ... convince Captain Fitzpatrick he has no
further use for it."

"How's he gonna do that?"

"At the point of a gun, I suspect." She left the room and headed for her
desk to make the necessary calls to get someone to tow the freighter to
Mexcio.

Herb shook his head and lay back on his pillow. Damn if she's not the
meanest bitch I've ever known, he thought. He glanced down at his
privates. Better not ever let her down, big guy, he whispered, or she
'II have you in a jar on her shelf.

The Boeing V-22 Osprey dropped through the clouds over Columbus, Ohio,
like a stone. Inside, Otis Warner and General Joe Winter held their
breath, certain the plane was going to crash.

"Take it easy back there," Captain Joe Gonzales called on the intercom.
"We're just trying to get below their radar as fast as we can."

Once the Osprey fell below five hundred feet, Gonzales leveled off,
rotated the twin turboprop engines to the vertical arrangement, and the
craft operated like a helicopter.

It dropped as easily as a bird settling to the ground with hardly a jolt.

"Are we there?" Otis asked, unbuckling his seat belt.

Winter glanced out the window. "Yeah, looks like."

"Here we are, gentlemen," Gonzales said as he strolled down the aisle.
"Right where you asked to be delivered."

"Clinton Army Base?" Winter asked.

64

"Yeah. Intel says it's been abandoned since you guys took over from
Osterman last year. Word is she hasn't gotten around to restaffing it yet."

Winter and Warner hurried between the seats to the door as Gonzales
opened it and extended the ladder to the ground.

"I can give you half an hour to get your people and your gear unloaded.
Any more than that would be pushing our luck," he said.

Ben Raines had supplied Winter and Warner with fifty thousand dollars in
gold coin, a staff of ten men and women from the intel division to help
them recruit and train guerrillas to take back the government from
Osterman, and assorted communications and weapons supplies to use until
they could steal or buy more of their own. Ben and Mike Post had picked
the location of the U.S. rebels' new headquarters near Columbus, Ohio.
It was near enough to Osterman's base camp at Indianapolis to be of use,
but not so close they'd be noticed.

Once Warner and Winter's crew and supplies were unloaded, the Osprey
took off again. To escape notice, Gonzales kept it under five hundred
feet until it was miles away from Clinton Army Base, and then pointed
the nose at the sky and took off like a shot.

Otis Warner wasted no time. He appropriated the commanding officer's
office in the base headquarters, and had his people begin setting up the
long-range radio and other equipment in the adjacent offices. They
patched into nearby phone lines, using the SUSA's newest technology so
their lines wouldn't be detected or traced.

General Winter, meanwhile, was consulting his files for friendly names
to contact to begin building a guerrilla force to combat Osterman's
Armed Forces. He had over two thousand names of men and women who'd been
supportive of their own short-lived government and the peace process
they'd started before Osterman seized back control of the government
last year.

As he combed his files, he made marks next to the men

65

65

and women he would contact first, people who had contacts in Osterman's
Armed Forces. It would be important to have men on their side who could
keep them informed of Claire's plans and warn them if she became aware
of their activities. The new war for freedom was just beginning.

66

Harley Reno and his team strolled back into the meres' camp, as if
they'd been out for a walk in the jungle. Sergei Bergman was in his
office reading over their resumes when Sergeant Herman Bundt stuck his
head in the door.

"Hey, Boss, you gotta see this."

Bergman glanced up. "I'm kind'a busy here, Herman."

"I'm telling you, you don't want to miss this," Bundt persisted.

Bergman threw his pencil down and got to his feet. When he walked out
the door, he saw Harley's team depositing arm-fuls of weapons in a pile
in the center of the camp.

"Reno, what the hell's going on?" Bergman asked, striding over to the
big man.

Harley grinned. "We figured these were easier to carry than the men
themselves," he answered.

"What do you mean?"

"Your men are all out there in the jungle, tied up and waiting for you
to send someone to cut them loose."

"You mean you killed them all?" Bergman asked, an astonished tone in his
voice.

"No," Hammer answered, stepping up next to Harley. "We captured all of
them. They weren't good enough for us to have to kill them."

Bergman shook his head as if he couldn't believe his ears. "They were my
best scouts."

67

"If they were your best men, sir," Coop said, "then you're in a world of
hurt."

Bergman looked over his shoulder at Herman Bundt. "Herman, send some men
to pick 'em up."

"Yes, sir," Bundt answered, a grin on his face. It seemed he appreciated
the audacity of this new group of recruits more than Bergman did.

Bergman stood there, face-to-face with Harley Reno. Bergman was almost
as tall as Reno, but his shoulders were narrower and his muscles were
leaner, like a long-distance runner's. With short-cropped blond hair and
blue eyes over a fair complexion, Bergman looked like a poster-child for
the Aryan ideal of Bottger's New World Order.

"All right," Bergman finally said, his hands on his hips and his eyes
boring into Reno's. "I can see you people are good at tactics. How are
you at hand-to-hand combat?"

Harley shrugged. "Try us and see."

"I will." Bergman whirled around and walked over to a cleared area used
for hand-to-hand combat training. There was a large circular area of
mulched soil surrounded by bleacher-like stands for others to watch. The
rest of the meres were already gathering to see what the newcomers had.

Bergman glanced over the crowd until he spied one of his drill
sergeants. He gestured to him to come forward.

A huge man, over six feet four Inches in height and heavily muscled,
stepped forward. He had the face of a bulldog, with heavy brows over a
nose that looked as if it'd been broken more times than it'd been fixed.

"This is Helmut Gundarson," Bergman said. "He's my combat instructor in
martial arts."

Harley looked at Helmut and shook his head. "Is this the best you've
got?" he asked, a sneer in his voice.

"Yes," Bergman answered. "I think he'd make a fitting opponent for you.
You two are about the same size."

"It ain't about size, sir," Harley said. He looked at his team. "Jersey,
you want to take a shot at this one?"

68

"Sure, Harley," she answered as she stepped up to the man. Her head
barely came to the level of his chest and he outweighed her by two
hundred pounds.

Helmut grunted and glanced at Bergman. "Sir," he said, his German accent
thick, "I would not want to hurt this small one."

"Are you sure this is the one you want to fight Helmut?" Bergman asked
skeptically.

Harley nodded. "How far are we going with this? Is it a fight to the
death?" he asked seriously.

Bergman looked surprised at the question. "Uh, no, just tell her to try
to win the fight."

Harley called to Jersey. "Jersey, try not to kill this one, okay?"

She looked disappointed. "Is it okay if I break him up a little?" she
asked, her face innocent.

Helmut growled. "You will be the one broken, bitch."

Jersey wagged her finger in his face. "Now, don't try and make this
personal, Helmut baby," she cooed in a soft, feminine voice. "The first
rule of combat is to keep your cool. Otherwise you get your fat ass kicked."

Helmut's face flamed red as the soldiers around all laughed at Jersey's
comments at his expense. He ripped off his belt and holster and walked
to the center of the circle, flexing his massive muscles as he stretched
and paced the area.

"Better give me your K-Bar, Jerse," Coop said, holding out his hand.
"Wouldn't want your reflexes to take over and have you gut the bastard."

Jersey took out her K-Bar assault knife and flipped it end over end to
land stuck in the ground millimeters from Coop's foot.

She glanced at Bergman. "You want this over fast, or do you want a show
for the boys in the back row?"

Now even Bergman had to grin at the audacity of this small woman. "Oh,
by all means, dear girl, give us a show," he

69

answered as he joined the others around the edge of the circle of combat
to watch.

Jersey bent and untied, then slipped out of, her heavy combat boots,
before walking barefoot to the center of the circle.

Helmut crouched in the classic martial-arts stance, his feet apart with
his left foot slightly forward, his hands held up before him with index
and middle fingers extended.

"Hah!" he grunted, shaking his arms in the typical greeting before combat.

"Oh, Jesus, Helmut," Jersey said, standing flat-footed, her hands at her
sides, "cut the crap and let's get it on."

Helmut's face blazed even redder and he began to dance around her on his
toes, waving his arms up and down slowly, like snakes weaving before
striking.

Jersey just stood there, letting her eyes follow him without moving her
body at all. She looked completely unprepared for an attack.

From the edge of the circle, Coop called, "Any bets? I'm giving two to
one on the little lady."

At least twenty of the men crowded around him, holding out wads of
currency and shouting out they'd take his bet.

In the circle, Helmut suddenly leaned to the side with his weight on his
left leg, and his right leg flashed out in a sidekick aimed at Jersey's
head.

It flashed by, missing her by inches as she leaned slightly to the right
and let the leg pass harmlessly by.

Helmut continued his spin and swung a stiffened right arm backward at her.

Jersey again leaned her head back, allowing the blow to miss her by less
than an inch. As Helmut's face came around after his arm, she took a
short, quick step forward and her right hand shot out, palm first.

The base of her palm hit Helmut flush on the nose, flattening it and
sending a shower of blood and mucus spraying outward as his head snapped
back and he grunted in pain, tears flooding his eyes.

70

Jersey didn't follow up her advantage, but stood there, her hands again
at her side as she grinned at Helmut.

"Had enough, big guy?" she asked. "From now on, all you have to look
forward to is more pain."

Helmut sleeved blood off his face, his eyes glittering hatred. "You
bitch!" he growled.

Jersey's face darkened. "I told you not to get personal, Helmut. You
don't know me well enough to call me bitch," she said calmly.

Helmut raised his hands and danced forward on his toes, just as Jersey
dropped onto her outstretched right hand and swung her left leg in a
sweeping arc at Helmut's feet, knocking them from under him.

Without slowing her movements, Jersey bent her leg at the knee and
imbedded her heel in Helmut's chest as he went down. Everyone in the
crowd heard the crack as one of his ribs snapped and he screamed.

When they rolled to their feet, Helmut was bent slightly to the left,
favoring his aching rib, while Jersey stood there watching him.

"I could take your eye next," she said, an appraising look on her face,
"but that would make you useless to Mr. Bergman. So, I think I'll just
take part of your left ear instead."

Helmut's eyes widened for a second, before Jersey stepped in, dodged his
chopping right hand by letting it slip off her shoulder, and buried her
left fist in his solar plexus just below his sternum.

Helmut doubled over and Jersey slashed at the side of his head with a
flattened right hand in a move so quick only a few of the bystanders saw it.

Helmut grunted again and jerked his head back. His left ear was hanging,
partially torn off at the top, blood spurting down the side of his face.

Jersey turned to look at Bergman. "Have you seen enough? I really don't
want to cripple the big guy."

71

Helmut yelled in anger and jumped at her exposed back, his arms
outstretched to strangle her.

Without looking, Jersey ducked and backed into his charge, grabbing his
right wrist as it passed her head and yanking down on it, catching his
right elbow on her shoulder and breaking it with a loud snap.

Helmut didn't scream this time. He fainted from the shock and pain of
his broken arm, slipping quietly to bis knees, then toppling over onto
his face, out cold.

The men watching the exhibition were silent. All too many of them had
been manhandled by Helmut in their combat training, and they knew he was
no easy mark. Yet this small woman had made him look like a clumsy oaf.

Coop held up the wad of money in his hand. "Thanks, gents. It was a
pleasure doing business with you."

Bergman walked out to stand over Helmut, shaking his head. "Herman, get
two or three men to carry Helmut to the medical tent and have the doc
look at that arm."

"Yes, sir," Bundt said, winking at Jersey as he pointed to a couple of
men to come and help him with Helmut.

Jersey wasn't even breathing hard, and had barely broken a sweat when
Bergman spoke to her.

"You made that look easy," he said.

She shrugged. "He made the mistake of judging me by my size," she said.
"In combat, it's not size that counts, it's ability, and the easiest way
I know to get killed is to underestimate the ability of your opponent."

Bergman nodded. "Very well said, Jersey."

He turned and waved at Harley. "Bring your team into my office after
lunch. We need to talk."

As Harley and the others moved toward the mess tent, Harley spoke in low
tones. "Spread out while we eat and try to get some of the others to
talk. We need to find out who's ramrodding this outfit and just how
dangerous they really are. Concentrate on amounts and types of weapons
and materiel, as well as strength and training of the other troops."

72

"From what I've seen so far, they don't look all that dangerous," Coop said.

"Don't judge them all by what we've seen here," Hammer said. "This is
just the training ground for the new recruits. There's no telling what
kind of troops have already passed through here."

"Yeah," Anna said. "There can't be more than a few hundred men here at
this camp. We need to find out the strength of the rest of this army,
'cause I know Claire Osterman wouldn't be asking this group for help
unless there are a hell of a lot more of them somewhere else."

They filed into the mess tent and went through the line to pick up their
trays, then dispersed to sit among the other trainees and gather what
intel they could through casual conversation.

When Jersey got to the end of the line with her tray, men at several
tables stood up, all trying to get her to sit with them. Anna received a
similar reception from the men.

Coop snorted through his nose. "Huh, guess it's been a while since these
guys had any female company."

Harley grinned. "Yeah, an' the ones they got here don't exactly set a
man's loins on fire either," he said, inclining his head at some of the
other women meres in the room, all of whom had faces that would stop clocks.

After lunch, the team proceeded to Bergman's office, where he sat
waiting for them, looking over their papers on his desk.

When they were seated, he went through their applications one by one.

"Harley, I see you were an officer in Ben Raines's Army," he said.

Harley nodded. "Yeah, until I slugged an officer and got court-martialed."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I didn't like Buddy Raines's attitude, so I decked him one night
in the officers' club."

73

"Buddy Raines? Any relation to Ben Raines?" Bergman asked with upraised
eyebrows.

"His son."

"Shit. No wonder you got canned," Bergman said.

"He's an arrogant little pissant who's gettin' by on his daddy's
reputation," Harley said with a sneer.

Bergman nodded, going on to the next sheet. "Cooper, it says here you
were on Raines's personal team ... as a driver.''

"I was, until I porked his main squeeze," Coop said, sticking to the
story Mike Post had put in his file. "Then I found myself pulling every
dirty job in the business. Figured I'd better get out before I got
fragged by; one of his friends."

The interview went on like this, with each of the team having a story
that would account for their leaving the employ of the Army of the SUSA.

Finally, Bergman leaned back, sticking a cigar in his mouth and lighting
it as he looked at the group. "Well, other than your obvious discipline
problems, you seem like soldiers who will do us some good."

"It'll be a pleasure to get our licks back against Raines and his
soldiers," Harley said with feeling.

"I think I'll have your team take over as my drill sergeants here at the
training camp," Bergman said. "You obviously have some special skills we
can use in our training program."

"Before we sign on, we'd like a few questions answered," Harley said.
"Like, just who are we working for and what kind of action can we look
forward to."

"That's on a need-to-know basis," Bergman said, dismissing the question.
"All you need to know is the pay is excellent, especially for staff
personnel, and that we'll have the best equipment money can buy when we
go into combat."

Harley nodded, too cautious to press his questions now. He'd wait until
later, when he could do some snooping around the office without being
observed, to find the answers he needed.

"How long do we have to get these troops combat-ready?"

74

Hammer asked. "From the looks of those we've seen, it's gonna take a while."

"Less than a month," Bergman said. "So, you'd better get busy whipping
them into shape."

"Yes, sir!" Harley said, standing up.

As they filed out and headed to the barracks to find their places, he
asked each of them if they'd found out who the head man was. None had.

"It's like none of the troops know who the boss man is," Coop said.
"They're as much in the dark as we are."

"Well," Harley said, "keep digging. We can't leave here until we find
the answer."

"I did learn there're a hell of a lot of troops already finished with
basic training," Jersey said. "Several battalions at least."

"Shit," Harley said, "and from what Bergman says, they've got modern
equipment and lots of it to use against us when the time comes."

"Why not just have Ben call an air strike against this place?" Anna asked.

" 'Cause he's not ready to start a war with South America," Harley
answered. "No, we're gonna have to wait until they start to move out and
get in neutral territory before we can do anything offensive against them."

"Did you catch that comment Bergman made about having the troops ready
within the month?" Jersey asked.

"Yeah," Harley said, "and that's some info we need to get back to Ben as
soon as we can. I don't think he has any idea things are moving that fast."

Coop nodded. "That probably means Perro Loco's gonna start his offensive
in Mexico any day now."

"Jerse and I'll get out to the communications gear tonight and try and
let Ben know what's going on."

"Why don't you tell him we're gonna line these bastards up and let
Jersey kick the shit out of 'em one at a time?"

75

75

Coop said with a grin. "That way he wouldn't have to worry about them
helping Loco out."

She cut her eyes at him. "I know just who I'd start with too," she said,
giving him a flat look.

76 Nine

Bruno Bottger, Rudolf Hessner, and Sergei Bergman made their way to the
scientific lab Bottger had built on the outskirts of his mercenary
training facility.

"Have there been some new developments by Dr. Krug?" Hessner asked as
they wound their way down several flights of stairs to the subterranean
basement where the scientist he spoke of did his work.

Bottger nodded. "Yes, he says he's solved the problem of the new anthrax
biological weapon he's been working on for the past three years."

Bergman shook his head. "I don't know why he's continued to work on
anthrax," he said. "We tried that in Africa and the SUSA's vaccines made
it worthless as a weapon. All it succeeded in doing was to kill a lot of
animals and aborigines."

"Wait until you hear what he's accomplished," Bottger said with a sly
grin as they entered the laboratory through double-sealed pneumatic
doors, a precaution against accidental infection of the training facility.

As they walked into the room, a tall man with an acne-scarred face and
wild hair looked up from a microscope he was peering into.

"Ah, Herr General Bottger," Krug said with a smile, wiping his hands on
his white lab coat before shaking hands all around.

"Doctor," Bottger said, "perhaps you can explain your most

77

recent breakthrough to my associates. They seem to have some doubt as to
the efficacy of your bacteria as a weapon."

"Follow me, gentlemen," Krug said, leading them down dark passages into
what appeared to be a prison section, walled off with two-inch-thick glass.

He stepped up to the window and pointed inside. There were six beds in
the room, upon which lay four men and two women with the dark skin of
South American Indians. Their skin was covered with large, pustular
sores and they were soaked with sweat, shivering and shaking as they
coughed and hacked until blood ran from their mouths.

"I sprayed my anthrax into the cell of the man on the left four days
ago. He initially developed flulike symptoms which lasted only
thirty-six hours, then apparently recovered. I then exposed the others
to him. Twenty-four hours later, all were sick and are now as you see them."

Bergman shrugged. "So what, Doctor? I see nothing here to indicate any
difference in the results from what we had several years ago."

Krug shook his head. "Ah, but there are several differences. Notice the
animals in the cages around the room? They are unaffected by the
bacterium, unlike the previous weapon, which left a barren area desolate
of mammalian life forms. In addition, all of these subjects were
previously vaccinated with the vaccine in the possession of the SUSA and
the U.S. As you can see, it had no preventive effect on the sickness."

"Tell them the other part," Bottger urged.

"I have been able to make the anthrax infective from a spray that can be
released by either bombs or missiles, and, unlike traditional
respiratory anthrax, it is infective from person to person, so that the
spray does not have to be everywhere to do its work. Once a segment of
the population is infected, they stay healthy for several days, long
enough to travel and infect hundreds of other unsuspecting citizens."

"Let me get this straight," Bergman said, "we now have a biological
weapon that the SUSA and the U.S. have no vaccine

78

against, and it can be delivered by aerial bombs or missiles, and it
will spread throughout the country person to person?"

"Yes," Krug said with a maniacal gleam in his eye. "Wonderful, isn't it?"

"Is there no conventional treatment for the illness?" Hessner asked as
he peered at the Indians who were near death.

Krug shrugged. "Yes. If the patients are caught very early in their
illness, massive doses of antibiotics will slow or even reverse the
illness. But the amount needed will quickly use up the available
supplies of even the richest country in a matter of days, leaving the
rest of the populace at its mercy."

"And you have a vaccine I can use to inoculate my troops against this
respiratory anthrax?" Bergman asked.

Krug nodded. "It is being manufactured on a large scale even as we speak."

"Will the SUSA scientists be able to duplicate this vaccine?" Hessner asked.

"Certainly, given enough time," Krug answered. "But the rapidity with
which the illness spreads means they will lose at least fifty to sixty
percent of their fighting forces before they can make enough to do any
good."

"By that time, our armies should have been able to take control of all
of the major cities and facilities in the country, forcing Raines to sue
for peace," Bottger said, his eyes aflame with insane excitement.

After they'd returned to Bottger's office, he poured them all brandy and
handed out fat cigars to celebrate Dr. Krug's accomplishment.

As Bergman puffed his stogie and sipped his brandy, he had a thought.
"General Bottger, I have a suggestion," he said.

Bottger waved his hand in an expansive gesture. He was feeling good
enough to take advice from anyone at this point. "Go ahead, Sergei."

"The last time we fought Raines, he learned of our bacterial weapons in
time to formulate a vaccine against them. I suggest we keep Krug and his
workers completely isolated from the

79

rest of the troops, just in case there are spies around who might tell
Raines of our new weapon."

"Excellent idea, Sergei," Bottger said. "Anything else?"

"Yes. I further suggest that we hold off vaccinating our own troops
until the last possible moment to keep any hint of our having new
biological weapons from leaking out."

"I had already anticipated such a move," Bottger said. "Dr. Krug assures
me the vaccine only takes about a week to do its job, so we'll plan to
vaccinate our troops on the day they move out. At that time, we'll
initiate saturation bombing of Mexico City and points up to the southern
border of the SUSA."

"Why not bomb the SUSA itself?" Hessner asked, smoke from the cigar
trailing from his nostrils.

Bottger shook his head. "The SUSA is too well guarded, especially from
an air assault. I fear none of our planes or missiles would get
through." He paused to drink the remainder of his brandy in one large
draught. "No, if we manage to infect a significant portion of the
Mexican citizens, they will travel to the SUSA looking for help and thus
spread the infection almost as fast our bombs could, and without wasting
any of our precious aircraft on a futile assault."

Bergman nodded, smiling. "And additionally, in the initial stages of the
plague, the SUSA will think their troops are protected from the anthrax,
not knowing it is a new bug."

"Exactly," Bottger agreed. "For now, the most important thing is to keep
the secret of our new weapon from being discovered by the SUSA or anyone
else."

"That brings up an interesting point, General," Bergman said.

"Yes?"

"I fear it will be impossible to keep the secret if we start to
vaccinate Perro Loco's troops, or Claire Osterman's Army in the U.S.
Raines would be sure to find out, perhaps in time to develop their own
vaccine."

80

Bottger smiled once again. "Who said anything about giving the vaccine
to either Loco or Osterman?"

"But, we're gonna need their troops to help us in our takeover of the
SUSA. We only have about twenty thousand mercenaries in our ranks,"
Bergman argued. "Hardly enough to form an assault on Mexico and the SUSA
at the same time, even if a large percentage of their troops are
becoming sick from the plague."

"I know that," Bottger said. "That is why I intend to hold off on the
biological weapon until Perro Loco has taken or is very close to taking
Mexico City. Once that has occurred, to hell with him and his troops, we
will no longer need them."

"What about Osterman's Army?" Hessner asked.

"The plan at this point is for her to harass Raines and the SUSA from
the north, to divide his attention between her and Mexico. While I don't
plan to bomb the U.S. itself, the disease will invariably make its way
northward once it's gotten a hold in the SUSA. By that time, Osterman
and her Army will likewise be of little use to us. Once the entire
continent of North America is reeling under the influence of the plague,
I will offer the vaccine on condition I am appointed lifetime ruler of
the entire continent."

"What is to keep them from going back on their word once they have the
vaccine?" Hessner asked. "We can't possibly hold the entire continent
with only twenty thousand men."

"Don't worry, my friend," Bottger said, leaning back in his chair and
puffing on his cigar. "If there is one thing I've found in all my years
as a general, it is that there are plenty of people in every country who
are willing to switch sides to the winning side in time of war. Just
look at the history of World War II, when many of the most idealistic
Frenchmen joined the Vichy government and helped Germany rule their
conquered country. I have no doubt the SUSA and the U.S. will be little
different. I don't think we'll have any problem identifying and
recruiting men to help us rule, once we've attained power."

81

"So, what is our next step?" Bergman asked, stubbing out his cigar in an
ashtray.

"Assign men you know are completely reliable to guard Dr. Krug's lab and
his records," Bottger said. "I'd suggest you use only men who have been
with us from the start, back during the Africa campaign or before."

Bergman nodded. "Anything else?"

"Yes, you must get our men in fighting shape as soon as possible. It is
my understanding Perro Loco is going to start his assault on Mexico City
within the month. We must be ready to step in as soon as he's done all
the hard work. I want our army amassed on the southern border of the
SUSA at the time the bombings with our plague organism commence, for it
will only be a matter of days after that when the SUSA will begin to
feel the effects of the plague, and our army must be ready to invade on
a moment's notice."

82 Ten

Ben Raines stopped for a moment outside the hospital room and tried to
rearrange his face into a hopeful expression to replace the sorrowful
one it now held.

He knocked on the door and entered.

In spite of knowing how sick he was, Ben was still surprised by Dr.
Lamar Chase's pale, drawn face. It had been almost twenty-four hours
since Ben's doctor and longtime friend had had his heart attack while
playing golf on the headquarters' course. This was the first time
Chase's doctors had allowed anyone to visit the ailing physician.

"Hi, Doc," Ben called as he entered the room, trying to sound cheerful.

Lamar rolled his head to the side and smiled wanly at Ben. "Howdy, Ben,"
he said, even his voice sounding weak and tired.

Ben knew the man, who was in his sixties, had been slowing down of late,
but he'd had no idea his friend was so sick. He took a chair next to the
bed and put his hand on his friend's arm.

"So, what happened, old friend?" Ben asked.

Lamar smiled, and Ben could see some of his old personality shine through.

"Well, first of all it was hot enough to fry eggs on the greens, and I
should've known better than to try and play on such a day," Lamar said.
"On the next to the last hole, I hit my ball into a sand trap ... a
really deep bunker. After I hit

83

it out-right next to the pin, by the way-I started to climb out of the
bunker and felt like a mule kicked me in the chest."

Ben nodded. "Your doctors said it was a minor heart attack."

Lamar grimaced. "There ain't no such thing as a minor heart attack,
podna," he said. "I'm afraid I won't be much use to you in the upcoming
war with those bastards down in Mexico."

"Sure you will, Doc," Ben tried to reassure him, though he knew he spoke
the truth. "The doctors say you're gonna be fine."

Lamar nodded. "Sure, if I take it easy and don't do anything stupid,
like playing golf in a hundred-and-ten-degree heat, or traveling to
Mexico where a hundred and ten is considered a nice fall day."

"Well," Ben said, "we'll make do somehow."

"That's what I want to talk to you about, Ben. There's this new young
doctor I want you to assign to take my place. He's a little green, but
I've never met a, smarter or better all-around doctor."

"And just what is this young hotshot's name?" Ben asked. He knew Lamar
was a hard taskmaster, and anyone who got such praise from him had to be
the real deal.

"Larry Buck," Lamar replied. "He's top-notch, and not afraid to get in
there where the action is if need be. He just got off a tour with the
scouts as a field medic." Lamar smiled grimly. "Said he wanted some
field experience with gunshot wounds and such."

"Sounds like just the sort of man I need on my team. Have you spoken to
him about it?"

"Yes. As soon as I was out of ICU, I called him on the phone and we
talked it over. He's all for it if you'll have him."

"Doc," Ben said seriously, "I've known you almost twenty years. When was
the last time I neglected to take your advice?"

"When I told you to stay out of the field and give up those hand-rolled
cancer sticks of yours."

84

Ben laughed. Doc had indeed told him he was getting too old to be
traipsing around the world fighting battles. He'd said it was a younger
man's game. In his heart, Ben knew his old friend was right. . . that he
was slowing down as he got older and it would be sooner rather than
later when he would finally have to resign himself to doing his
generaling from a desk instead of a HumVee in the field.

"All right, so I still smoke occasionally. But other than that, I'll
take your advice and hire this Dr. Buck on as my team physician and the
Surgeon General of the entire command."

Lamar rested his head back on his pillow, a smile on his face. "Good.
Now get the hell out of here and let me rest. Don't you know I've had a
heart attack and need my sleep?"

"Okay, pal," Ben said, ruffling the gray hair on Lamar's head. "I'll see
you later, all right?"

"If you're lucky," Lamar slurred, already beginning to fall asleep.

Dr. Larry Buck stepped up to Ben's desk and snapped to attention. "Dr.
Buck reporting as ordered, sir!"

Ben smiled. The man was indeed young. He looked to be no more than
thirty on the outside. He was also remarkably fit for a doctor. Standing
almost six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a head of unruly black
hair that fell in a comma over his right eyebrow, he was a good-looking
man who looked more like the scouts he'd trained with than an M.D.

"First off, Larry, we don't go in much for salutes and formality around
here. As a member of my team, you'll be family. I can't abide yes-men or
sycophants. When I ask for your opinion, I don't care whose ox gets
gored. I want your honest thoughts."

"Yes, sir ... uh, Ben."

"That's why Lamar and I got along so well and why he did such a good job
of keeping my team and the Army healthy.

85

He's the type that'd walk right up to the devil and tell him he wasn't
drinking enough water."

Larry laughed. "You got that right, Ben. That's one of the reasons I
asked to be assigned to his command when I graduated from the military
academy medical school."

"Most of the rest of the team is on assignment in South America right
now, so you'll have to wait to meet them."

"I've already familiarized myself with all of their medical records, Ben."

Ben eyebrows raised. "That include mine?" he asked.

Larry grinned. "Especially yours. Doc Chase told me if I let anything
happen to you, he'd personally kick my ass from here to there."

"How do you think he is, really?" Ben asked, becoming serious.

Larry nodded. "Looks like he's gonna be okay. They did a cath on him
this morning and he only had a partial blockage of the left main
coronary artery, the one they call widow-maker. Dr. Polukof did an
angioplasty on him and cleared the blockage completely, so he should do
fine unless he overdoes it before he's healed."

"I take it you'll make sure that doesn't happen, correct?" Ben said
pointedly.

"Yes, sir. I've got two of the toughest nurses on the ward watching him
twenty-four hours a day. They're both ex-marine nurses, so even Doc
Chase won't be able to scare them off."

"Have you had a chance to go over Lamar's records to see if there's
anything about his chain of command you want to change?"

"Yes, and the only suggestion I'd make is to have a few more female
doctors assigned here. Lamar was something of an old-fashioned doc who
didn't think women belonged in battle situations."

"And you disagree?"

"Yes. From what I've seen, women are able to handle the emotional stress
of combat surgery and battlefield medicine

86

better than men, and the men patients are less likely to give women docs
the guff they do the male docs."

"Then go ahead and make whatever changes you deem necessary. It's your
command now, Larry, so make the best of it."

"Yes, sir."

"Eagle One to Nest, Eagle One to Nest," Anna said into the microphone.
She was crouched in the ruins of an old plantation where her team had
stashed the communications gear on the way to join Bottger's
mercenaries. Jersey was outside the rotted walls of the main house,
keeping watch to make sure they weren't being observed. It was close to
midnight, and they'd sneaked out of the barracks to give their first
report to Corrie, who was maintaining a twenty-four-hour-a-day watch on
the radio back at the freighter.

"Eagle Nest to Eagle One, come in," Corrie's voice replied in the
earphones. The communicator was fitted with the latest in scrambler
technology, so they were able to speak in the clear without using code.

"We've made it into the mere training program," Anna said. "In fact,
they've made us DIs."

"Drill instructors?" Corrie asked.

"Yeah."

"Have you gotten any idea about how large their forces are?"

"From what we've picked up talking to other troops, it appears to be
about twenty to twenty-five thousand meres."

"And any indication who is behind the training camp? Who the number-one
man is?"

"Not a clue yet. He must stay pretty much in the background, 'cause no
one we've spoken to has ever even seen him, much less met him to talk
to. And the higher-ups in the training program won't say a word about
who's footing the bill for all this."

"How well equipped are they?"

87

"Extremely well. They have the best and newest weapons and seem to have
plenty of ammunition to waste on training exercises. The other trainees
tell us they've also got planes, choppers, and other heavy equipment and
materiel stored and ready to go at any time."

"Still, twenty-five thousand troops doesn't sound like enough to get too
worried about," Come said.

"That's what we thought. It's certainly far less than Perro Loco has in
Mexico already."

"Keep digging. I'll check with Ben and see if he needs anything else.
When he hears how small the forces are there, he may just say the hell
with it and pull you out."

"You'd also better let him know they want us ready to move out in one
month."

"One month. Wow, that's a lot sooner than Ben thought."

"Yeah, so tell him he'd better keep a close eye on Loco in Mexico,
'cause that means the offensive there is going to be starting real soon
too."

"Okay, will do. You and the others watch your back and we'll get this
info to Ben ASAP."

"There is one other thing, though," Anna said, almost as an afterthought.

"What's that?"

"There's a rumor going around among the troops about some sort of secret
weapon. Something that's supposed to be really big."

"You think it's nuclear?"

"No, I doubt it. Tactical nukes are old hat to these meres. They
wouldn't get excited about those. It must be something else, something
that makes whoever runs this place think he's got a chance to stand up
and run with the big dogs."

"Well, see what you can dig up and I'll talk to Ben. Eagle Nest out."

Anna packed up her gear, put it back under the rotted wooden flooring of
the main room in the old house, and with Jersey started back toward the
camp.

88

As they moved easily down the trail through the jungle under a
half-moon, they heard voices ahead of them. Jersey tapped Anna's arm and
pulled her aside into the underbrush just as two camp guards walked up
the trail, M-16's cradled in their arms.

"I'm tellin' ya', I heard 'em pass this way not more'n twenty minutes
ago," one of the guards said.

"You sure it wasn't an animal?" the second man asked.

"No, I told you I heard 'em talkin' on the audio sensor plain as day."

Shit, Jersey thought to herself. They had audio sensors planted around
the camp. She should have thought of that.

"Could you hear what they was sayin'?"

"Somethin' 'bout a radio, an' it sounded like it was women talkin'."

Uh-oh, Jersey thought. Now we've got to take them out. They know too much.

She slipped her K-Bar from its sheath and nudged Anna's arm, making a
cutting motion across her throat with her index finger. Anna nodded and
slipped her knife out, a Canadian Army Stiletto model.

After the men walked past their hiding places, the girls stepped out
onto the trail, their knives held down low next to their thighs.

One of the men must have sensed something, for he turned and looked back
up the trail. His eyes widened in the moonlight as he saw the two dark
figures behind them. He started to raise the M-16, but he was far too slow.

Anna was on him like a cat, burying her stiletto up to the hilt in his
chest. The point entered just under the ribs on the left and proceeded
upward at a forty-five-degree angle and pierced the heart muscle,
killing him instantly.

As the second man whirled around, Jersey did a spinning side-kick into
his groin. He dropped his rifle and doubled over, clutching his balls
and groaning. She stepped to his side and ran the razor-sharp blade of
her K-Bar across his throat, jerk-

89

89

ing it back quickly so it wouldn't get splattered by the gush of blood
from his severed carotid arteries.

After the two men had quit moving, Jersey and Anna trotted back up the
trail, being careful not to make too much noise this time lest someone
else hear them on the audio sensors. They could only hope the two guards
hadn't told anyone they'd heard two females on the mikes, or Jersey and
Anna were in deep shit.

90

The freighter carrying supplies and materiel finally pulled into the
harbor at Villahermosa, pulled by two giant seagoing tugboats. As it was
being unloaded by huge cranes dockside, Perro Loco stood on the wharf,
talking with the captain.

"Did you find out what caused the damage to your rudder and propellers?"
Loco asked.

Captain Fitzpatrick nodded, his eyes angry. "Yes. Once we were docked, I
sent a couple of divers below to survey the damage. There's no question.
Someone planted limpet mines on the hull next to the propeller shafts
that took out both rudders and both propellers."

"Limpet mines? How could they do that without you knowing it?"

Fitzpatrick shook his head. "It must have been Navy SEALs. I don't know
of anyone else who could do that while we were under way without getting
themselves killed in the process."

Loco turned his head and stared northward toward the SUSA. "That bastard
Raines is behind this."

"Well, whoever it is, my company's not going to be happy about it,"
Fitzpatrick said. "The cost of the repairs will have to be added to my
bonus for bringing you this equipment."

"Oh, your bonus," Loco said, as if he'd forgotten all about the
arrangement Osterman had made with the captain. "After the ship is
unloaded, bring your crew to my headquarters on the Navy base and you'll
get your money."

91

"How about you just bring me the money here to the dock and we'll be on
our way."

"But, Captain Fitzpatrick, wouldn't you and your men like a day or two
of... recreation after your long voyage? I promise you, the Mexican
senoritas can be very entertaining."

Fitzpatrick glanced at the ship, where his men were sweating under the
hot Mexican sun as they supervised the unloading of the equipment. "They
could use a couple of days of rest," he said, as if to himself. "All
right, General Loco."

Loco patted him on the shoulder. "I'll see that you have first-rate
accommodations on the base while you enjoy a few days of relaxation," he
said.

The captain nodded his thanks and walked back toward his ship.

Loco turned to Paco Valdez, a sly smile on his face. "Once the captain
and his men arrive at the base, have them put in the brig."

"Why not just kill them and be done with it?" Valdez asked, his hand
caressing the hilt of the long knife he carried on his belt.

Loco shrugged. "I have a feeling we may be needing the good captain and
his men in the future. His freighter will make an excellent transport
for some of our troops, once we've captured the northern ports of
Mexico. We can use them to move up the replacements we're going to be
sent from Nicaragua next month."

"Good idea," Valdez agreed.

"And, Paco, treat them well, plenty of food and water. Sick men don't
sail well."

"Yes, comandante."

Loco turned back and watched as several more helicopters and airplanes
and tanks were unloaded from the ship. He was going to use this
equipment to make Raines pay for all the trouble he'd caused him, after
he took Mexico City.

The Mexican troops would not be able to stand against his soldiers once
they began their march up the Pan American

92

Highway toward the north. The tanks and helicopters were much better
than the antiquated equipment the Mexican Army used.

Harley Reno was having lunch with his team, after a morning of putting
the mere trainees through the hell of basic training.

He spooned up the navy beans and ham, and washed it down with iced tea
with lime. One thing he had to give the mercenary training center. The
food was as good as any he'd ever tasted in the Army.

Coop, his elbows on the table, spoke in a low voice so men at
surrounding tables couldn't hear. "Scuttlebutt has it a couple of guards
were killed last night. Word is getting around there might be some spies
in the camp."

Harley nodded. "Yeah, I heard the same thing."

Jersey's face turned red. "We didn't have any choice. They knew the
voices they heard on the audio pickups were female."

"I know," Harley said. "It can't be helped now. Problem is, security's
gonna be doubled around the camp, making it almost impossible to sneak
out and report back to base."

"Speaking of security," Hammer said from the end of the table, "you guys
notice that area off to the north, past the firing range?"

"You mean that cluster of buildings on the edge of the jungle?" Anna asked.

"Yeah. A couple of days after we got here, I noticed they put guards all
around the place, along with signs saying, 'Off Limits.' "

"What do you think's going on?" Harley asked.

"I just wonder if that's got anything to do with the rumors we've been
hearing about a secret weapon of some sort," Hammer said between
mouthfuls of beans and ham.

"You think it might be some sort of nerve gas?" Jersey asked.

93

Harley shook his head. "Naw. If we were gonna be using gas of any type,
they'd have us training the men with masks and gas gear. Even meres
aren't crazy enough to go into the field where gas has been used without
masks and chem gear."

"What kind of weapon would make them think twenty thousand men are gonna
make a difference in Mexico?" Coop asked. "Hell, that crazy bastard
Perro Loco had over two hundred thousand, and he only got halfway to
Mexico City before he got his ass kicked."

"I don't know," Harley said, "and that's what bothers me. Bergman and
the other leaders are pretty damned confident of their success, so it
must be something they think will make the difference."

"Then, it's up to us to find out what's in that building," Jersey said.

Harley cut his eyes at her. "You think you can do it?"

She nodded. "The problem won't be getting in. The problem's gonna be
doing it without leaving some trace we've been there. If they suspect
their secret's been compromised, they'll be a lot more thorough in the
background checks, and we'll be found out."

"Then we need two things," Harley said. "First, a diversion to allow you
to get in and get out of that building without being seen, and second,
we need a scapegoat to take the fall as a spy to take the heat off us."

"How are we gonna do that?" Coop asked.

"I'll get into the records room tonight and go through the paperwork to
try and find a likely suspect," Harley said. "Coop, you and Hammer get
together tonight and figure out a suitable diversion to give Jersey and
Anna time to search the building."

Coop looked at Hammer and grinned. This was the kind of thing he loved
to do, throw a monkey wrench into someone else's machinery.

"We'll set it up for Saturday night, after everyone's gone to town for
weekend passes."

94

* * *

Saturdays in the camp were called "half-days," and in theory were
supposed to be short so the men could get cleaned up and go into a
nearby village for what little entertainment existed in the area. In
fact, the days usually lasted almost as long as the other days, due to
Sergei Bergman's insistence that the schedule be worked overtime to get
the men trained as soon as possible.

So, it was almost dusk when the final exercises were over and the DIs
dismissed the men to their barraclcs with twenty-four-hour passes.

Harley and the team gathered in the mess shack, which was almost
deserted since most of the soldiers planned to eat in town later that
evening.

"You come up with someone we can put the blame on if we're caught?"
Jersey asked Harley.

"Yeah. His name's Mingo Higgins. He was one of the men who supported the
takeover when Osterman was ousted and had to flee the country when she
took over again. He'll be perfect, 'cause he's got ties to someone
friendly to Ben Raines."

"But, Harley, if he was against Osterman, doesn't that make him one of
our friends?" Coop asked.

"Not this guy, Coop. He's already been up on charges twice for raping
Indian girls out in the jungle. The only reason he wasn't prosecuted was
the families were too afraid to come in." Harley got a look of extreme
distaste on his face. "And get this. Bergman has the guy's record marked
as a good candidate for their interrogation squad. Seems he's always
looking for men with a taste for violence."

"Lends a whole new meaning to the phrase 'looking for a few good men,'
doesn't it?" Anna asked, a grim smile on her face.

"Yeah, and remember, he'll only be needed if they discover

95

we've been snooping around the off-limits area," Hammer added.

"Any idea why they haven't said anything about the two guards we offed
on the trail the other day?" Jersey asked.

Harley shook his head. "No, but I figure they're aware there are spies
in camp and are watching and waiting for us to make a mistake and give
ourselves away.

"I figure we'll set off Coop's diversion around 2100 hours, so you and
Jersey should be ready to make your move then," Harley continued.

The ammunition bunkers were set on the edge of the camp, away from the
barracks and other living quarters of the officers in case of explosion.
Just before nine o'clock that night, while Harley and Hammer were in
town establishing alibis for the team, Coop snuck into one of the
smaller bunkers and made a pile of M-16 ammo, hand grenades, and mortar
rounds in the center of the bunker. When his watch showed exactly nine
P.M., he put a flash-bang phosphorous grenade in the center of the pile
and pulled the pin, then bolted from the bunker as fast as he could run.

Five seconds later, the grenade exploded, the heat from the phosphorus
set off the other munitions, and the bunker exploded, sending slugs and
shrapnel slicing through the surrounding jungle with a tremendous
explosion of fire and sound, flames shooting a hundred feet into the air.

Bergman and some of the other officers, who rarely went into town, along
with everyone else remaining on the base, came running from their houses
to try and fight the blaze.

When Jersey and Anna heard the explosion, they waited for the guards
that were always in front of the buildings to run toward the
disturbance. Then they slipped through the area marked OFF LIMITS, and
crept up to the large, stucco building covered with signs saying
ABSOLUTELY NO ADMITTANCE.

Jersey took a pick-set out of her pocket and went to work

96

on the locks on the door. It took her less than two minutes to open the
door, and she and Anna slipped inside the darkened room.

They pulled small flashlights from their pockets, and proceeded through
the maze of rooms until they came to what looked like a laboratory in
the rear of the building.

The room was filled with long counters covered with bottles and Bunsen
burners and microscopes, all the equipment of a well-appointed college
chemistry lab back in the States.

"Jesus," Anna whispered, "they must have spent a fortune on this stuff."

"You look around here and see if you can figure out what they're working
on. I'll roam around and see if I can find an office with some papers
that might tell us more," Jersey said.

Anna continued to search the room, looking in all the microscopes, but
finding nothing that would give her a clue as to what was going on.

Jersey went through the house room by room, until she came to another
locked door made of metal. "This looks interesting," she mumbled to
herself as she once again got out her picks.

When she opened the door, she noted it was surrounded by a rubber seal.
"Uh-oh," she said, "this doesn't look good." The only times she'd ever
seen doors like that were in biological warfare centers.

As she stepped into the darkened room, she felt the hair on the back of
her neck stir. Something was definitely wrong here.

She flicked on her flashlight, and almost gagged at what she saw through
a large glass partition in the rear of the room.

Six bodies were lying on cots. Two of the people were obviously dead,
the others as close to death as it was possible to be and still be
breathing. Their bodies were covered with

97

sores and pustules, and seemed to be rotting away as she watched.

She quickly turned away from the grisly sight and looked around the rest
of the room. In a corner was a large commercial-type refrigerator, also
with a lock on it.

She knelt before the door and again picked the lock, opening the door to
find it filled to capacity with bottles of murky liquid, the tops sealed
with paraffin.

"Shit," she whispered, "this must be the bad stuff that caused whatever
it was in that other room."

She reached into the back of the refrigerator and plucked a bottle from
the rearmost row, hoping it wouldn't be missed, then relocked the door
and left the room, relocking that door behind her also.

She found Anna in the lab, still trying to find some clue as to what the
men were working on.

"Anna, come on, let's get out of here," Jersey said. "I've got the goods."

"What is it?" Anna asked.

"I don't know, but it causes a hell of a reaction in whoever is exposed
to it," Jersey answered.

They went out the front door, and were in the process of locking it
behind them when a guard appeared out of the darkness and attacked them.
He dove against Jersey, slamming her against the door she was locking.
As he raised his hand with a knife in it, Anna chopped across the back
of his neck, breaking one of his vertebrae and killing him instantly.

As he slumped to the ground, Jersey turned around with a look of horror
on her face.

"Don't worry, Jerse," Anna reassured her. "I took him out."

Jersey's face blanched white as she looked at a wet stain on the front
of her shirt. "That's not what I'm worried about," she said in a hoarse
voice.

"What is it?" Anna asked, getting spooked by the fear she saw in
Jersey's eyes.

Jersey bent and placed the dog tags with Mingo Higgins's

98

William W. Johnstone

name on them in the dead guard's hand, then looked up at Anna.

"I think we've just loosed the hounds of hell!" Jersey said through a
throat closing with dread.

99 Twelve

Claire put down the microphone and turned to General Bradley Stevens,
Jr., with a grin on her face.

"That was Perro Loco. The equipment and materiel we sent finally
arrived. He's unloaded it and is in the process of beginning his assault
toward Mexico City."

"Have you heard anything from Bruno Bottger?" Herb Knoff asked from his
chair in front of her desk.

She shook her head. "No, but I'm expecting a call any day now. When we
last spoke, he was in the final process of training some new recruits.
He should be about ready to add his men to those of Loco's for the move
against Mexico City."

"How are you going to set up their cooperation?" Stevens asked. "You
know they're both egomaniacs. They'll probably end up fighting each
other more than the Mexicans."

Claire leaned back in her chair, an enigmatic smile on her face. "I
thought I'd set it up as a contest."

"Contest?" Herb asked.

"Yes. I'll simply suggest to Loco and Bottger that they keep their
respective troops under their own control, and that they should each
take a different route to Mexico City, one up the coast and one inland.
That way, the first troops into the city will get the majority of the
spoils and credit for taking the city."

"That's brilliant, Madame President," Stevens said, a smile of
appreciation on his face. "It also serves the additional purpose of
keeping the two leaders from getting too close per-

100

sonally, and will prevent them from having the time to conspire against
you."

Claire nodded. "Oh, I have no illusions, General," she said. "I'm quite
certain both of these men have designs on betraying me eventually. They
both have too much ambition to be satisfied with merely ruling Mexico."

"If you believe they plan to betray you, why use them?" Stevens asked.

"They are merely a means to an end, Brad," she answered. "Attack dogs to
take some of the heat off our troops and keep us from having to divide
our forces in our attack on Raines and the SUSA."

"But, isn't that dangerous?"

"Life is dangerous, Brad. I'm counting on the two of them destroying
each other long before they can become a threat to us here in the U.S."

"And if they don't?" Herb asked.

"The fighting to take Mexico City will weaken both of them, and the
subsequent fight against Raines's southern border will weaken them even
further," she answered, "if not destroy them completely. What is left
should be easy pickings for our forces after we destroy Ben Raines."

"Why are you so sure we'll beat him this time?" Herb asked.

She glared at him. "Having doubts about my plan, Herby?" she asked,
venom in her voice.

"No, it's just that every time we've gone after Raines, he's managed to
survive. I don't want to underestimate how difficult this is going to be."

"I'm not underestimating the bastard," she said irritably. "Whatever I
think of him personally, I have come to believe he is a brilliant field
commander when it comes to waging war. But"-she held up her hand-"never,
in the history of combat, has a country been able to successfully
prosecute a war on two fronts. Even the Germans in World War II couldn't
do it."

101

101

"Speaking of the second front, when do you want our forces to attack the
SUSA's northern borders?" Stevens asked.

"I think we should now begin to move them into position, very slowly so
as not to attract too much attention, but hold off our offensive until
Raines is forced to commit some of his battalions to his south, probably
after Mexico City itself comes under attack."

"Will do, Madame President."

After the general left the room, Claire turned to Herb, a gleam in her
eye. "Well, Herby, now that business is taken care of, do you have any
suggestions for how we can while away the time until Bottger contacts us?"

Herb smiled, and glanced toward the door to Claire's bedroom on the
opposite wall. "Oh, I think I can come up with something, if I'm pressed."

Claire began to unbutton her blouse. "Consider yourself pressed," she
said with a lascivious grin.

Sergei Bergman stood at attention before Bruno Bottger's desk, his neck
red with worry about how the man would receive the news he was about to
give him.

"Yes, sir," Bergman said. "I'm certain the fire and explosion in the
ammunition bunker was a diversion so the laboratory area could be broken
into and searched."

"Do you think this ties in to the killing of the two guards several days
ago?" Bottger asked, leaning forward with his elbows on his desk.

"Yes, sir."

"Go on, Sergei," Bottger said, leaning back in his chair and reaching
into the humidor on his desk for a cigar.

"Although the scientists say they can find nothing disturbed in the lab,
the guard that was killed at the front door did have a set of dog tags
clenched in his fist."

"So, you think that possibly the guard attacked the burglars before they
managed to get inside the facility?" Bottger asked.

102

"Yes, sir, that is my presumption."

"And who did the dog tags belong to?"

"A recent trainee named Mingo Higgins."

"His history?"

"He was involved in the abortive rebellion against President Osterman's
rule. When she came back, he was forced to leave the country and seek
other employment with us."

Bottger pursed his lips around the butt of the cigar, then removed it
and stared at the red-hot ash on the end. "And did it not occur to you
that a man who was at least sympathetic to Ben Raines and the SUSA might
be a danger to us?" Bottger asked, steel in his voice.

"No, sir. The man's record is replete with instances of cruelty and
criminality that make him completely unsuitable in Ben Raines's eyes."

Bottger slammed his hand down on his desk and stood up. "Records can be
doctored, you fool!"

Bergman dropped his eyes to the carpet in front of him. "Yes, sir, I'm
well aware of that. But this Higgins was given no access to sensitive
material. In fact, he was in training as a simple foot soldier."

"Even a flea can cause a dog trouble, Sergei," Bottger said. "Are you
sure this man acted alone?"

"No, sir. In fact, I would be surprised if he didn't have accomplices."

"Are you taking measures to ferret out these traitors?" Bottger asked as
he turned his back and walked to stare out of his window.

"Yes, sir. I'm personally reviewing all the records of the recruits that
have come to us since we moved here."

Bottger turned around, the cigar sticking out of the corner of his
mouth. "Sergei, I want results on this, and I want them fast. Pick up
Higgins and take him down to interrogation."

Bottger cut his eyes to Rudolf Hessner, who, as usual, was standing in
the corner of the room observing everything that went on. "Rudolf, I
want you to personally go to the lab and

103

103

interrogate the scientists. Make them go over everything in the lab to
make sure nothing was disturbed."

"Yes, sir," Hessner said, nodding his head quickly.

"If the secret of the plague we're working on gets out, it could ruin my
entire plan to take over the North American continent."

"I will make sure nothing was taken, Herr Bottger," Hessner said as he
walked rapidly out the door.

104

As soon as she realized she was contaminated with the biological weapon
they'd found in Bottger's lab, Jersey stepped away from Anna and held
out her hands.

"Stay as far away from me as you can, Anna," she said, pointing to the
stain on the front of her fatigues.

"Is that . . . ?" Anna asked, a look of horror on her face as she stared
at the dark spot.

Jersey nodded. "Yeah. The good news is, whatever the nasty stuff is
those bastards are working on in that lab, we now have a sample of it."

"But that means . . ."

Jersey nodded, and began to move at speed through the jungle toward a
stream that ran along the edge of the training fields. "It means I'm
probably going to get it," Jersey replied shortly, her voice showing
none of the terror she felt.

Anna followed Jersey through the thick undergrowth as close as she dared.

Finally, when they reached the sluggishly moving water, Jersey stripped
out of her clothes, even removing her dog tags, and threw them in the water.

"What are you doing?" Anna asked, puzzled by Jersey's strange actions.

"Remember the phrase they taught us in Biological Warfare class? "The
solution to pollution is dilution.' That means the only chance I've got
to prevent this BW from spreading

105

105

throughout the entire camp is to dilute whatever bug is in there with
plenty of water."

As she finished speaking, Jersey slipped off the bank and into the stream.

"Cover me with your side arm," she called softly to Anna, looking around
for crocs as she scrubbed at her skin under the water to try to wash off
the chemical solution, though she knew in her heart it was impossible to
decontaminate herself in such a manner.

Anna pulled her Beretta out and searched the water for any signs of
life. "You think that's going to work?" she asked.

Jersey shook her head as she climbed from the stream, water coursing
down her naked body. "Naw, it won't help me keep from getting sick, but
it may keep you guys from getting it"

She took off through the jungle, still naked. "Come on, we haven't got
long before they discover that body in the lab. We've got to get the
hell out of here."

When they got back to the base barracks, Anna slipped inside and quietly
woke Coop, Harley, and Hammer, whispering to them to come outside.

She led them around the side of the building to where Jersey was
waiting, standing naked in the shadows.

"What the . . ." Harley said as they saw her condition.

"Keep your distance," Jersey said. "I've been contaminated with whatever
biological weapon these guys are working on. Our only chance to prevent
them from using it is to get me back to Santos and the ship before I die
so the doc can use me to make some sort of vaccine."

Coop noticed her shivering in the cool night air and walked over to her,
slipping his T-shirt off.

"Coop, stay back!" she said.

"Screw that," he said, his lips curling in his trademark grin. "You're
cold and you're naked. Here," he said, handing her his shirt.

106

After she slipped it on, he stood there with his arm around her, trying
to warm her and stop her chills.

She looked up at him. "But you'll get it too," she said softly.

He shrugged. "Then Doc'll have two specimens to work with. It'll double
his chance of getting enough blood to make a vaccine."

Harley and Hammer stepped over to Anna and asked her what had happened
at the lab. She told them everything, including the fact they'd left
Mingo Higgins's dog tags on the dead guard.

Harley nodded. "Good. That may give us a few extra hours. As soon as
they discover those tags, they're gonna come for Higgins."

"While they're wasting time interrogating him, we can be making tracks
for Santos," Hammer added.

Harley glanced at Coop and Jersey. "Hammer and I will gather up what
clothes and weapons we can for the trip and we'll meet you out here in
five minutes."

"It's gonna take us a day or two, so bring some rations too," Coop advised.

Harley nodded, and he and Hammer and Anna disappeared into the barracks.

After they were gone, Coop squeezed Jersey's shoulder. "How long do you
think we have before we get sick?"

"Most BWs are designed to work fast. I'd say we'll begin to experience
our first symptoms within twenty-four hours."

"Any idea just what it is we're dealing with here?" he asked.

"No, there wasn't a clue in the lab. But," she added with a shiver, "you
can bet it'll be bad."

"You think we'll be able to make it twenty-five miles through the jungle
if we get sick?"

"We'll have to," she answered. Then she looked up at him and caressed
the side of his face with her hand. "Coop, thanks," she said.

"For what?" he asked, a surprised tone in his voice.

107

107

"For the shirt, and for being with me," she said.

Even in the moonlight, she could see him blush.

"Oh, well, I couldn't have those horny bastards looking at you like
that. It wasn't right."

She smiled. "I noticed you didn't turn your eyes away."

He glanced down at where her breasts pushed against the thin cloth of
his T-shirt, her nipples clearly visible.

"Hell, no," he said. "I'm a gentleman, but I'm not completely stupid."

She looked over her shoulder and saw no one watching them. She turned
her body into his and put her arms around him. "Did you like what you
saw?" she asked, her face turned up to his, her breasts pushing against
his chest.

As he returned her gaze, she felt his answer as his body responded to
her closeness.

"More than anything I've ever seen," he said, leaning his head down to
kiss her gently on the lips.

After a moment, she drew back with a deep sigh. "Better quit, while I
still can," she whispered.

"You think they'd miss us if I picked you up and carried you off into
the jungle," Coop asked, his voice husky with desire. ;

Jersey was saved from answering by the approach of Hammer, Harley, and
Anna, their arms full of clothing and weapons and other gear for the trip.

Jersey and Coop quickly slipped into their BDUs and boots while the
others kept watch.

"I figure they'll be here for Higgins any minute, so let's make tracks
outta here," Harley said.

"Wait a minute," Jersey said. "Won't they notice we're not here when
they come for Mingo?"

Anna shook her head. "No, we fixed up our bunks with pillows to look as
if we were still in them."

"Let's travel, people," Harley whispered, his voice urgent as he turned
to lead them into the jungle. "We've got a lot of

108

ground to cover," he said, glancing over his shoulder, "and we don't
know how long until you two get too sick to travel."

As they moved off into the darkness, with Jersey and Coop well back from
the others, Coop asked, "Any chance of getting the communications gear
and having them pick us up in a chopper?"

Harley shook his head. "Too risky. They could track the chopper and it'd
lead them right to the ship. No, we're gonna have to do this the
old-fashioned way and walk home."

"Just what I was looking forward too, a leisurely traipse through the
jungle at night," Coop said, glancing nervously around him at the thick
underbrush surrounding them.

Jersey quietly reached out and took his hand as they walked. She idly
rubbed at the spot on her chest where the BW had stained her shirt. Her
skin was already beginning to itch, but she thought that was probably
just her imagination.

Mingo Higgins's head lolled on his chest, blood dripping from his
shattered nose onto the concrete floor between bis bare feet. His hands
were tied behind the back of the chair he was sitting on.

Bruno Bottger stood before him, his eyes glittering hate as he
questioned the mere. "Who sent you here?" he shouted, slapping Higgins
awake again.

Higgins answered through swollen, split lips. "No one," he said, his
voice barely intelligible.

"Why did you break into my lab?"

Higgins shook his head, the movement making him wince as waves of pain
shot through every part of his body. "I already told you, I don't know
what you're talking about."

Bottger scowled and stepped back, allowing Sergeant Herman Bundt to step
forward. Bundt's hands were covered with padded black gloves, and he
delivered two quick blows to Higgins's face, snapping his head back and
shattering his two front teeth.

109

109

Bottger took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped away blood that
splattered onto his boots.

"I think it is time for the chemicals," he said.

"But, Herr Bottger," Sergei Bergman said, "they will turn his mind to
mush. He will be useless to us afterwards."

Bottger cut his eyes to Bergman. "He is already useless. Do you think I
would trust him again? Do whatever you have to and make him talk!"

Bergman nodded his head at Bundt, and the sergeant picked a syringe up
off a nearby table and filled it with a colorless liquid from a vial. He
bent next to Higgins and jabbed the needle into his arm vein, depressing
the plunger and sending the liquid coursing through Higgins's body.

As his eyes clouded over under the influence of the truth serum, Higgins
began to mumble and laugh to himself, as if he were sharing a private
joke in the recesses of his mind.

Again, Bottger put the question to him. "Who sent you here to spy on me?"

Higgins's eyes rolled back in his head as he tried to focus on the man
standing in front of him.

"No one sent me. I came on my own to find work," he answered, his voice
slurred as if he were drunk.

After another fifteen minutes of this, Bundt finally said, "It is of no
use, Herr Bottger. Either he is innocent, or he is so well trained we
will never get the truth out of him."

Bottger threw his bloodied handkerchief into the wastebas-ket.

"You want me to have him shot?" Rudolf Hessner asked.

"No, send him to the lab. The scientists can always use another subject
for their experiments."

He hesitated, thinking of what to do next. "And while you are there,
tell them to conduct another search of the lab to make sure nothing is
missing."

"Yes, sir," Hessner said as he bent to untie Higgins's hands and help
him to his feet.

"Rudolf," Bottger said.

110

"Yes, sir?"

"When you're finished at the lab, go with Sergei and Sergeant Bundt and
have all of the trainees assembled in the squad yard. It's time to find
out just who is loyal and who isn't."

"Yes, sir," Hessner said.

111

Mike Post knocked and entered Ben Raines's office just after breakfast.

"Hey, Ben," he said, as he took his usual seat opposite Ben's desk.

"Mornin', Mike," Ben said over the brim of his coffee cup. "What've you
heard about Osterman and her current plans?"

Mike looked at a sheaf of papers in his hand. "Lot of reports of troop
movements to the north. Nothing on a large scale, but lots of small
units seem to be on the move, and all of them are heading south."

"You think she's getting her troops in position to make a move against us?"

Mike nodded. "That'd be my first guess. That, combined with the intel
from Harley Reno's group saying the meres in South America are gearing
up for an offensive within one month, suggests that she's planning on
hitting us from the north simultaneously with the offensive from the
south in Mexico."

Ben smiled. "I guess she thinks she can keep us so busy defending
ourselves here we won't be able to help the Mexican Army stand off Perro
Loco and whoever is fronting the meres from South America."

"Yeah, and I've gotta say it's not a bad idea. It's gonna be real hard
to manage a war on two fronts."

Ben's face grew reflective. "She's certainly studied her history. No
major power has ever been able to do it successfully."

112

"What do you think our chances are?" Mike asked, stuffing the papers
back in his briefcase.

"If you mean keeping Mexico free as well as fighting off Osterman from
the north, I'd say about fifty-fifty."

"That low?" Mike asked, his expression becoming worried as he
contemplated the idea of the SUSA losing a war.

Ben nodded. "In fact, if we expended a major effort to save Mexico City,
the odds would be even lower than that."

"So, what do you plan to do?"

"Since the president of Mexico is being so stubborn about accepting our
help before the fact of an invasion, I think we're gonna have to let him
do it his way and defend his capital city on his own."

"You think he can pull it off?"

Ben shook his head. "Not a chance," he said. "The man is a complete
imbecile where modern warfare is concerned. Mexico City is far too large
and spread out to defend in the usual manner, and Perro Loco has too
much sophisticated weaponry to be held off the way the Mexican president
wants to."

"So, you think Mexico City is doomed?"

"Yeah, sooner or later, and probably sooner, Loco with the help of the
meres will take the city."

"Then what?" Mike asked.

"Mexico City is five to seven hundred miles from our southern border,
which we control. I'm going to send a couple of battalions down there to
beef up our forces there, as well as sending in as many scout teams as I
can spare to the northern parts of Mexico. I'm going to make Loco and
his meres fight for every inch of territory between Mexico City and our
southern borders. It's going to be a war of attrition so devastating
that Loco may have to be content with having Mexico City."

"Then, you're gonna cede Mexico to Loco and his minions?"

Ben nodded. "Essentially, yes."

Mike shook his head. "That doesn't sound good."

113

113

Ben grinned. "Oh, it won't be a permanent situation. I'm hoping at some
point the citizens of Mexico will rise up and revolt against the
carpetbagger leadership of their country. As soon as a credible
revolutionary leader emerges, we'll give him our fall backing and help
him take back his country."

"That means a lot of Mexicans are going to die."

Ben leaned forward, his elbows on his desk. "Mike, I've said it a
hundred times. A country gets the kind of leader they deserve. The
Mexican president is an idiot, but he's the one the people down there
wanted to lead them. If he fails to protect his people, then they're
going to have to pay the price for electing him in the first place. It
is not our place to spend the lives of American men and women to shore
up his deficiencies of leadership."

"You think he'll agree to letting our scouts into his northern regions
to protect our southern borders?"

"Not a chance," Ben replied.

"But you said . . ."

Ben nodded. "I'm going to send them in and have them dig in down there,
but he's not going to know anything about it," Ben said with a smile.
"Every road that can carry tanks or other heavy equipment is going to be
mined, and every hill or mountain high enough is going to have
antiaircraft batteries on it to help protect us against any bombing raids."

"But, with a force that size, he's bound to find out about it," Mike
protested.

"Oh, I'm sure at some point he's going to realize what's going on," Ben
replied. "That's when I'm going to sit down and talk some turkey with
him. I'll simply say if he ever wants to trade with us again, or if he
wants any help in saving his country from those madmen from South
America, he's going to have to accept the way we do things."

"And if he's too dumb to see the light?"

Ben's face became hard. "Then, I'll simple put his lights out permanently."

"That's playing hardball."

114

Ben nodded. "Like they say, Mike, war is hell."

As Mike got up to leave, Ben asked him, "By the way, have you got any
hints on who may be leading the meres down in South America?"

Mike shook his head. "No, they've been keeping it pretty tight down
there. Whoever it is must have spent a lot of money on the South
American government to keep his secret, 'cause no one's talking."

"Okay, maybe Harley and his people will be able to find out for me."

After Mike Post left the room, Ben sent for Georgi Strigi-nov, a big
bear of a man and the leader of Bat 505, and for Ike McGowen, the
commander of Bat 502 and one of Ben's dearest friends.

The two men entered the office at the same time, making it seem suddenly
smaller by virtue of their large size. Ike, who weighed close to three
hundred pounds and was in a continual battle to try to lose weight in
spite of his penchant for sweets, flopped down in a chair across from
Ben's desk, making it groan with his weight.

Ben smiled. "Ike, if you get any bigger, I'm going to have to
special-order some chairs for you to sit in."

"Bigger?" the big man protested. "Why, I'll have you know I've lost
almost ten pounds on my latest diet."

"Yeah," Striginov laughed, "a seafood diet. If you see food, you eat it."

Ike glanced at Striginov, who weighed over 250 pounds. "I don't see
where you have any room to talk, Georgi. You look even bigger than you
did last time I saw you."

Striginov stuck out his chest and pounded it with his hands. "Yes, Ike,
but the difference is my weight is all muscle, while yours is fat."

As Ike started to reply, Ben held up his hand. "All right, you two, cut
it out."

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115

The two men leaned back in their chairs and gave Ben their fall attention.

"Intel says Perro Loco is fixing to make his move down in Mexico," Ben
said. "I want your two bats down there on the border to get ready for
anything."

"How soon can we expect to be attacked?" Striginov asked.

Ben shook his head. "That depends on how long it takes the Mad Dog to
take Mexico City. He won't dare try and leapfrog to attack us with the
Mexico forces behind him, so he'll have to conquer Mexico City first.
That'll give us plenty of warning."

"So, we just sit and wait?" Ike asked with distaste.

"No," Ben answered. "I want you both to field as many scout teams as you
can and have them infiltrate Mexico without anyone knowing."

Striginov grinned. "In other words, that horse's ass of a president in
Mexico has not approved this plan?"

"You got it, Georgi."

"How do you want us to divide it up?" Ike asked.

Ben shrugged. "Work it out between the two of you."

The two generals looked at each other and smiled. "The troops are gonna
love this," Ike said. "They've all been complaining things have been too
quiet since Osterman was deposed last year."

"Spread your scouts out," Ben advised. "I want them to harass and slow
Loco as much as possible while I'm busy with Osterman's forces to the
north."

"Who's going to take care of our northern border?" Striginov asked.

"I'm going to station Dan Gray and his Bat 503 along with Pat O'Shea and
the 510 along the border."

"That'll be a hoot," Ike said. "An Englishman and an Irishman
cooperating to screw Osterman."

"What about Jackie?" Striginov asked, referring to Jackie Malone, leader
of the 512 Bat. "She's been bitching for months now that her command is
getting sloppy from inactivity."

116

"Jackie's going to have a special treat," Ben said with a grin. "I'm
gonna leapfrog her and her command up north of Osterman's forces. I
intend to show Osterman just what fighting on two fronts means."

Striginov rubbed his hands together. "This is beginning to sound like fun."

"I don't think Sugar Babe Osterman is going to think it's much fun when
she finds Jackie Malone breathing down her ass," Ike said with a wide smile.

Bruno Bottger stood before the assembled troops with Rudolf Hessner,
Sergei Bergman, and Herman Bundt at his side. The meres gathered there
were apprehensive, not knowing exactly why they'd been mustered out at
such an early hour.

Bundt went among the meres, stopping and asking several of them
questions before he came back to the front of the group and stood before
Bottger.

"Well?" Bottger asked him.

"It appears that several of our newest recruits are missing. Their beds
had pillows stacked on them under the covers to conceal the fact they
weren't there."

"Who are the ones missing?" Bergman asked.

"Harley Reno and his friends, sir," Bundt answered.

"And just who are these missing meres?" Bottger asked, turning to Bergman.

"Some of the best recruits I've ever seen," Bergman answered. "They
claimed to be ex-soldiers from Ben Raines's SUSA Army. They were so good
I made them drill instructors after their first days here."

"And you think they had something to do with the lab break-in?"

Bergman shrugged. "They must have. It's the only reason I can think of
for them to be AWOL."

"Send a team of your best men after them immediately,

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117

Herman. I do not want them to escape with whatever information they
managed to get from the lab."

"Yes, sir," Bergman said.

"If they manage to get off the island, they will undoubtedly head south,
since going north would merely take them farther into the jungle and it
is much too long a trip to Rio de Janeiro on foot. Fill one of the
helicopters with a team and have it take them south to the mainland.
Then set up an ambush there while another team follows from the rear,"
Bottger said, turning on his heel and striding rapidly toward his office
without waiting for Bergman's reply.

"Herman," Bergman said, leaning close to his friend.

"Yes, Sergei?"

"If you don't want to end up like Higgins, I'd suggest you bring us the
heads of these traitors, or don't bother to return."

Bundt swallowed as his face blanched as pale as the underbelly of a
slug. "I understand, Sergei."

As Bergman stalked away after his boss, Bundt turned back to his men. He
pointed to the team Harley and his group had humiliated on their first
day in the camp, and motioned them to come forward.

The tall, broad-shouldered black man with extensive burn scars on his
face stood at attention before Bundt.

"Ronald Watanabe," Bundt said.

"Yes, sir!" the man snapped back, his spine straight as an arrow.

"Would you like a chance to avenge yourself on the traitors who
humiliated you last week?"

Watanabe grinned, exposing several gold teeth in his mouth. "Yes, sir!"

"Good, 'cause you're going to get your chance. Assemble your team and
report with full weapons and gear to the airport. You will be
transported ahead of the traitors by helicopter. You will set up an
ambush on the mainland and stop them from escaping. You will then bring
me back the heads of the bastards. Do you understand?"

118

Watanabe's grin faded, replaced by a sneer. "Yes, sir. I guarantee you
it will be done."

"It had better be, Ronald, or you might as well stay in the jungle and
let the cats and crocs eat you, because that will be an easier death
than the one you'll face here if you fail."

As Watanabe gestured to Lieutenant Johnson to gather their team
together, Bundt began picking other men to lead the chase of the
traitors. He wasn't as concerned with the quality of the men who would
be sent, for he planned to send such a quantity of men that it wouldn't
matter how good they were. Their only job was to chase and hound the
deserters into the ambush being set up by Watanabe and his team.

When he had twenty men picked out, he gathered them around the big table
in the mess tent and spread out a detailed map of the area in front of them.

"The only chance the deserters have is to make it to the coast and find
some native fishing boats for the trip across the strait to the
mainland. They won't dare make the crossing in the daylight, so that
will give you almost twenty-four hours to find and kill them."

He looked around as the men nodded they understood. "Let me make myself
clear," he added. "These men are the best I've ever seen. Take no
chances. You will have superior firepower, so do not be afraid to use
it. Blast the bastards to death from as far away as you can, 'cause if
you get close to them, they will surely kill you first."

119

Bruno Bottger sat in his office with Rudolf Hessner and Sergei Bergman,
making plans for the upcoming war.

"Sergei, we cannot afford any more time for training of our mercenaries.
It is time to move the men and equipment out and head for Mexico."

"But, Herr Bottger," Bergman said, "the men are not ready."

"We have no choice, Sergei," Bottger said impatiently. "If these
traitors manage to get the information about our plague weapon to Ben
Raines, it will give Raines time to try and develop a vaccine. We must
press the attack on Mexico immediately, and keep our enemies so busy
they have no time for defensive measures against our biological weapons."

"But what about this Perro Loco who is to fight with us?" Bergman asked.
"Will he be ready?"

"I will contact Osterman in the U.S. and tell her the timetable must be
advanced."

"She will want to know why, Bruno," Rudolf Hessner said, "and we dare
not tell her of our plans to use the plague as a weapon."

"I will merely tell her that some spies from Ben Raines have found out
about our mercenary force and we need to strike before the Mexicans can
ask Raines for reinforcements."

"Do you think that will work?" Hessner asked.

Bottger nodded. "Yes. Osterman is so paranoid about Raines that any
mention of his name will cloud her mind to our real reasons for
advancing the date of the attack."

120

"Then I will begin preparations for an immediate departure," Bergman
said, standing up.

"We have five of the C-130 troop transport aircraft at our disposal,"
Bottger said. "Send a few thousand of our best troops in those, and put
the rest of the twenty thousand men and our equipment on the troop
transport ships. They should be able to make it to Perro Loco's base
within a week."

"I'll see to it immediately, Herr General," Bergman said, and left the room.

"Get me President Osterman on the scrambler," Bottger said to Hessner.

Claire Osterman was in a strategy meeting with her top advisors when her
phone rang.

"President Osterman, this is Bruno Bottger."

"Hello, General," she said.

"I am advising you that I am sending my men and equipment to Mexico
today. I feel it is imperative we advance the attack date on Mexico."

"Is there some reason for your haste?" she asked, tapping a switch on
the phone and putting him on the speaker so her advisors could hear the
conversation.

"Yes. I have just found out that Ben Raines sent a team of spies into my
camp. I'm afraid they now know of the strength of my forces and our
plans to aid you in your attack on Mexico."

"And you let them get away with this information?" she asked, steel in
her voice.

"Not yet, Madame President," Bottger answered. "They are still in the
jungle and haven't been able to communicate what they found out to
Raines. However, if he does find out how large our force is, he may be
able to convince the Mexican president to allow his SUSA forces to join
the Mexicans. That would make it very difficult for us to succeed in our
attempt to take Mexico City."

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121

Osterman hesitated a moment, then nodded as she answered. "Yes, General,
I see your point. Better to make a quick strike before Raines has a
chance to reinforce the Mexican troops."

"That is what I thought," Bottger said. "Do you think Perro Loco will
have any trouble getting ready earlier than anticipated?"

"No. He has been pushing me to move the attack date forward. There
should be no problem at all."

"How about your forces?" Bottger asked. "Will you be able to attack
Raines from the north in conjunction with our attack from the south?"

"I have already started moving my men into position," she said. "We will
be able to start by the time your men and equipment get to Mexico."

"I believe we will be in place and ready to move within one week, Madame
President."

Osterman consulted a calendar on her desk and marked the date. "One week
it is, General."

After she hung up, Claire glanced around at the men in her office. Herb
Knoff, Harlan Millard, Major General Bradley Stevens, Jr., and his
second in command, Colonel James King, were all watching her intently.

"What do you gentlemen make of that?" she asked.

Stevens shrugged. "It doesn't matter to me when we attack. Our forces
are almost in place and will certainly be ready within the week."

"I'm a little concerned, Claire," Harlan Millard said, his eyes narrowed.

"Why is that, Harlan?" she asked. Though she had little respect for
Harlan as a man, she knew him to be a shrewd thinker and politician.

"His reasons for advancing the date of the attack don't make any sense.
We always knew Raines was going to find out about Bottger and his
mercenaries sooner or later. Why the sudden panic when it happens?"

She glanced at Herb Knoff. "What do you think, Herb?"

122

Herb shrugged. "I agree with Harlan. I don't think Bottger is telling us
the whole truth about his reasons for advancing the attack date. I've
never trusted him."

"Nor have I," Claire said. "There's something he's not telling us, but
until we can discover what it is, I can see no harm in moving up the
attack. He's right about one thing. We can't afford to let Raines talk
the Mexican president into allowing the SUSA to send troops to aid him
before our attack."

"Our intel says that's not going to happen, Claire," Stevens said. "From
what our spies in Mexico City say, the president is a vain, stupid man
who thinks his Army can handle Perro Loco without letting the SUSA help."

"By the time he finds out differently," Colonel King added, "it'll be
too late for Raines and his Army to make much difference in the battle
for Mexico City."

"What about after we take Mexico City?" Claire asked.

"Raines won't dare counterattack then, Madame President," Stevens said,
" 'cause we'll have the ten million citizens of the city as virtual
hostages. We'll just let Raines know if he interferes, we'll raze the
city and he'll have the deaths of millions of innocent civilians on his
conscience."

"That bastard doesn't have a conscience," Claire said spitefully.

"No, but the United Nations does," Millard said. "Once we've taken the
city, we'll appeal to the U.N. to intervene and keep the SUSA from doing
anything to help."

"Do you think they're dumb enough to fall for that?" Claire asked.

Millard grinned. "You'll never go broke underestimating the stupidity of
the U.N., Madame President. Their only function seems to be to maintain
the status quo. Once we're in a position of power in Mexico City, they
will do everything in their power to stop further warfare."

"But Raines has shown he has nothing but contempt for the UN.," Claire
argued.

"If it were up to Raines, the U.N.'s opposition would mean

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less than nothing," Millard said. "But the president of the SUSA, Cecil
Jeffreys, is more of a political animal. I feel if the U.N. strongly
opposes intervention, he will keep Raines under control to prevent it."

Claire slammed her hand down on her desk. "It's settled then. General
Stevens, inform your commanders we attack the SUSA in one week all along
its northern border."

"Yes, ma'am," Stevens said with a smile.

"Harlan," she said.

"Yes, Claire?"

"I want you to start to work on the U.N. Call in some debts, bribe
whomever you have to, but make damned sure that once we've taken Mexico
City, they keep Raines and the SUSA out of it."

"That shouldn't be a problem, Claire."

"Okay, gentlemen, you've got your orders. Now, get to work."

After the men filed out of her office, Claire put her head in her hands.
"All this has given me a headache," she moaned.

Herb Knoff got to his feet and walked around behind her chair. He put
his hands on her shoulders and began to knead the muscles there.

"I know a great cure for a headache," he murmured in her ear.

She leaned her head back and kissed him on the lips. "You must have read
my mind," she said in a soft voice.

124

Jersey^ body shook with a chill, and sweat broke out all over her body.
She glanced to the side, and saw Coop wasn't much better. His skin was
pale and pasty-looking, and he was breathing heavily through his mouth
as they made their way through heavy jungle undergrowth.

Harley was keeping them off the main trails to prevent their being
ambushed, but it was heavy going. He was constantly checking his maps
and compass as he led them toward the coastline of the island.

Anna looked back over her shoulder as Jersey stumbled over a root and
almost fell.

"Jerse, you all right?" she asked worriedly.

Jersey nodded, accepting Coop's arm to help her stand up. "Just keep
your distance, Anna," she said.

A cough started deep in her chest and exploded from her mouth, causing a
deep, burning pain in her lungs that almost made her faint. She sleeved
her face off, and noticed flecks of blood on the cloth when she looked
at her arm.

"Trouble breathing?" Coop asked from her side.

She nodded. "Whatever the hell this bug is, it must attack the lungs,
'cause I feel like a truck is sitting on my chest."

He reached over and wiped sweat from her brow. "You're burning up,
Jerse," he said. "Your fever must be up to a hundred and four."

"You don't look so hot yourself, Coop," she answered with a wan smile.

125

125

"I'm still in the early stages," he answered. "You were exposed before me."

"How much farther till we can rest?" she gasped through the mucus
clogging her throat.

"Hey, Harley," Coop called. "How soon 'fore we can take a break?"

Harley stopped and turned to look at them in the slight light from a
half-moon. His eyes widened when he saw how bad the two of them looked.

"Jesus," he whispered. "We've got another couple of hours to the coast,
but we can take five now if you need it."

Jersey flopped down on the ground and lay on her back, breathing heavy,
her BDUs saturated with sweat.

Coop broke out his medical bag and opened a bottle of aspirin. He poured
several into his palm and handed them to Jersey along with a canteen.

After she swallowed them, he took a handful and did the same, wincing at
the bitter taste they left in his mouth.

As they sat there, munching on MREs to keep their strength up, the
whoop-whoop of a low-flying helicopter sounded over their heads.

Harley glanced upward. "Looks like they've found out we're missing."

Hammer nodded. "They'll be sending teams ahead of us to set up ambushes."

"If we can make the mainland, it'll be tougher for them to figure out
which way we're going," Anna said.

Harley shook his head. "Not really, Anna. The Pariba do Sul runs
parallel to the coast a few miles inland."

"What the hell is a Pariba do Sul?" Coop asked irritably.

"It's a wide river flowing to the sea," Harley answered, looking at his
map. "Several hundred yards wide and filled with crocs and snakes and
other goodies, I imagine. The leader of the meres has got to know we
won't be able to cross it, so we'll be trapped in a corridor a few miles
wide. He'll also

126

know we're bound to head south, 'cause there's nothing north except more
jungle."

"That means we're gonna have to fight our way to Santos," Hammer added
unnecessarily.

Jersey had another shaking chill as the aspirin began to lower her body
temperature. Some of the aching in her joints eased a bit, and she felt
well enough to try to force down an MRE, knowing she had to keep her
strength up as much as possible or she'd never make it back to the ship.

Harley glanced at his wristwatch. "Time to saddle up," he called.

"Do we have to?" Coop groaned.

"Only if you want to live," Harley replied with dry humor.

Coop helped Jersey get to her feet, concerned when he felt how weak she
was. If she got much worse, he was going to have to carry her.

Harley, seeing that Jersey was not going to be able to make much speed,
pulled Hammer to the side.

"Hammer, we're never going to make it at this speed, not with men on our
tail."

Hammer followed his glance at Jersey and Coop, both barely able to
stand. He nodded.

"I need a rear-guard action to slow them up a bit," Harley said. "You
think you can manage it?"

Hammer grinned without speaking.

Harley squatted and shined his flashlight on the map. "Here's where
we'll rendezvous, just before first light. Once we get there, I'll scout
up and down the coast until I find a boat suitable to take us across the
strait. You just be there by 0400 and we'll cross then."

"If I'm not there, go without me," Hammer said.

"No way, pal. We all go, or none of us goes," Harley replied grimly.
"So, be careful not to get your ugly butt fragged or you'll do us all in."

Hammer held out his fist and they touched knuckles. Then he whirled and
disappeared into the darkness of the jungle.

127

* * *

Hammer made quick time back the way they'd come, coursing back and forth
until he found a trail leading toward the coast. This was most probably
the way their pursuers would come.

He followed the trail until he came to an area to his liking. Squatting,
he dug several small holes in the humus of the path and placed
fragmentation grenades in the dirt. He pulled a spool of twine from his
backpack, tied it to the rings on the grenades, and stretched it across
the trail, tying the ends to a bush there.

Once the grenades were covered with leaves and twigs, he ran up the
trail to a large banyan tree and scurried up into its branches. He
pulled his SPAS shotgun out and checked the loads, replacing the
buckshot with flechette rounds. Each shell was filled with hundreds of
tiny razor-sharp shards of metal that would shred a man like a scythe
would grass. Once the SPAS was ready, he pulled out his Beretta
automatic and placed it on the branch near him, ready for use.

Lieutenant Jean LaFite was a Frenchman who'd hired on with the
mercenaries after being kicked out of the French Foreign Legion for
raping and killing an Arab girl. The only reason he hadn't been hanged
was he'd heard of his impending arrest and managed to leave the country
ahead of the gendarmes.

He was leading a squad of twenty men through the jungle after the
deserters. He knew a promotion was in it for him if it was his troops
who killed the deserters their leader wanted so badly.

Even though he was markedly ambitious, LaFite was no fool. He led his
men from the rear, having six or seven other men take the point ahead of
him. He remembered how Harley Reno and his team had taken out Watanabe's
squad with seem-

128

ingly little trouble, and he didn't intend to make the same mistakes the
black man had.

Gunter Held was an eighteen-year-old German boy who was full of the
ideals of Bruno Bottger's New World Order and had volunteered to walk
point. He was sure this was the fastest way to get a promotion in
Bottger's army.

He felt a slight tug as his leg tripped the string attached to the
fragmentation grenade, and he looked down just as the grenade exploded,
taking his head off and the upper half of his body down to the waist. He
didn't even have time to scream as the shrapnel passed through him and
shredded the next four men in line, sending body parts, blood, and
brains showering through the jungle.

Lieutenant LaFite reacted with lightning reflexes at the sound of the
explosion, throwing himself facedown in the moldy humus of the jungle
trail just as the second grenade went off.

The bloody stump of an arm hit LaFite in the back, and he screamed as
blood and mucus showered his face. He rolled over once and brought his
M-16 up and squeezed the trigger, ripping off a full clip of twenty
rounds in two seconds.

Six more of his men danced a macabre dance of death as their lieutenant
shot them in the back in his terror.

Sergeant Blandis jumped on LaFite's back and ripped the M-16 from his
arms, shouting, "Stop it, Lieutenant, you're killin' our own men!"

"Oh, God ... oh, God, help me!" LaFite screamed, completely out of his
mind with fear and loathing at the sight of the carnage around him.

Sergeant Blandis stood up, sneering down at LaFite. "You yellow
bastard," he hollered, and aimed his own weapon at LaFite.

LaFite held his arms out as if they could stop the bullets, but before
Blandis could pull the trigger, a booming echo of an automatic shotgun
shattered the sudden quiet of the jungle and Blandis was blown off his
feet, his head shattered and

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129

almost decapitated as he slumped and flopped down on top of LaFite.

What remained of LaFite's command all started firing blindly into the
jungle, some screaming and some moaning in fear at the horror of their
first firefight.

Several more loud explosions of the shotgun took more men down, and
caused the others to bury their faces in the ground and cover their
heads as they saw their comrades blown apart before their very eyes.

After a few minutes, when no more shotgun blasts came, one of the braver
men crawled over to LaFite and pushed what was left of Blandis's body
off him.

"Lieutenant, what'U we do now?" he whispered in the stillness of the
early evening darkness.

LaFite tried to gather his thoughts as he stared wildly around the
semidarkness, looking for whoever was killing his men.

The young soldier shook LaFite's shoulder. "Lieutenant, I said what'll
we do next?" he asked again.

"Fall back! Let's get the hell outta here!" LaFite said as he scrambled
on hands and knees back into the heavy undergrowth surrounding his position.

"But, sir, what about the wounded?" the soldier asked to his back.

"Fuck the wounded!" LaFite whispered hoarsely over his shoulder. "We're
obviously outnumbered. We'll regroup later," he added as he cowered
under a banana leaf plant, his empty M-16's barrel sticking out uselessly.

Of the twenty men in his command, LaFite had only six that were unmarked
by the battle, including himself.

When Hammer saw the men crawling away in the underbrush, he climbed
carefully down from the banyan tree and quietly made his way in a
semicircle around their position. Moving in a semicrouch, he never made
a sound as he circled

130

behind the group and then got down on his belly and crawled the rest of
the way.

Within a few minutes he found two men lying side by side, whispering to
each other next to a low-lying bush.

"Who the hell attacked us?" one asked.

"I dunno," the other answered. "It was only supposed to be four or five
men we were after."

"Hell, there must've been fifteen or twenty that let down on us," the
first replied.

Hammer rose up on his knees, his K-Bar in his hand. "Try one, you stupid
sons of bitches," he growled.

As the two soldiers turned to look over their shoulders, Hammer slashed
to and fro, opening both their necks to the bone.

The two men grabbed their throats, trying without success to stop the
spurting blood with their fingers as they gurgled and strangled their
lives away.

Hammer wiped his blade on one of the men's shirt, and stuck it back in
the scabbard tied to his leg. Then he got to his feet and began to trot
through the jungle toward the coast to join up with Harley and his group.

"If this is the caliber of men in the mere army," he muttered to
himself, "then we ain't got nothing to worry about."

After an hour passed, LaFite got to his feet and began to gather his men
around him.

"Hey, Lieutenant, look at this!" a private called from the bushes next
to the trail less than twenty feet from where LaFite had gone to ground.

He walked over and shone his flashlight on the bodies lying there,
gaping wounds smiling up at him from their ruined throats.

"Jesus," one of his men whispered, and crossed himself.

LaFite sighed. There was no way he was going to go after someone who
could do this.

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131

"Listen up, men," he said to the wide-eyed boys and men around him.
"We'd better get our stories straight before we head back to camp."

132 Seventeen

The heat was like a giant fist that beat down upon the soldiers and made
the metal parts of the equipment they were driving too hot to touch as
Georgi Striginov moved his 505 Battalion into place in deep west Texas
on the border with Mexico.

His area of coverage stretched from the city of Del Rio above the
Mexican state of Coahuila, westward across the Big Bend National Park
area, to El Paso, Texas, above Chihuahua, Mexico.

The land was beautiful in its stark, desertlike terrain, containing both
sandy, alkali flats and mountains that had to be traversed. The average
daily temperature was in triple digits, and the humidity was so low the
air would suck the moisture out of a body almost faster than it could be
replaced.

"It's like that old war called Desert Storm all over again," he
complained to Ben Raines via scrambled radio transmission. "The sand
gets in everything from food to equipment, an' I've got soldiers
dropping like flies from the heat."

"Then do like the commanders in Desert Storm did," Ben advised. "Keep
your daytime activities to a minimum and move your troops during the
cooler evening hours."

"That's easy to say," Striginov answered testily, "but there ain't no
roads down here, and you haven't lived till you've buried a fifty-ton
Hemic or tank in sand up to the turrets 'cause some private ran it into
a sinkhole in the dark."

Ben laughed, knowing that Striginov, like most of his Rus-

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133

sian forebears, liked nothing more than to bitch and complain before
buckling down and getting the job done.

"Well, if you're having that much trouble, maybe I'd better send one of
the other bats down there to help you out," Ben suggested, tongue in cheek.

"Did I say I couldn't handle it?" Striginov asked in a hurt tone of
voice. "I'll get it done, Ben. I just wanted you to know how difficult
the terrain is here."

"Have you seen any sign of Mexican troops yet?" Ben asked, to change the
subject.

"No. I suspect they're mostly stationed to the south of Mexico City
where the action is going to be."

"Good, then don't be afraid to . . . um . . . advance your line
southward as far as you like to get a better stronghold."

"All right!" Striginov answered happily. "I was hoping we weren't going
to have to worry overly much about borders and such down here in the
wasteland."

"I think by the time we'd be faced with any objection from the Mexican
government, they're going to have their hands full with Perro Loco's
army, so get as far south as you need to set up a good defensive
perimeter for your troops."

"Will do, Ben."

As the big C-130 aircraft began to land one after the other on the
airfields of the Pariso Navy base in Mexico, bringing Bruno Bottger's
most elite troops to join Perro Loco's army, Loco met with Paco Valdez,
Jim Strunk, and General Enrique Gonzalez, head of his armed forces.

"Before the soldiers of our new 'ally' from South America get here, I
want to make a few things clear," Perro Loco said.

The men sitting before him in his office nodded, and he continued.
"First of all, General Gonzalez, you will be in overall command of the
campaign to take Mexico City. General Bottger's men will take orders
from you. Is that clear?"

"Si, comandante," Gonzalez said. He was a lean man, with-

134

out the paunch and sloppy habits of the men who'd preceded him in the
job. He was hard as nails, and Loco knew he would stand his ground
against any encroachment of his authority by Bottger or his minions.

"Secondly, when the battle plan is drawn up, I want our troops to
advance on the eastern side of the country. Assign Bottger's troops to
the western front. All of the passable roads are either centrally
located or follow the eastern seaboard."

Valdez smiled grimly. "Also, most of the western coast consists of
jungles and mountains. His men will be bogged down for weeks just trying
to make headway through the country, even if there is little resistance
from the Mexicans."

"What if Herr Bottger's commanders balk at following our orders?" Strunk
asked.

Loco shrugged. "They are dependent upon us for their logistical support,
are they not? If they don't get fuel for their vehicles or ammunition
and food to replace what they use, how can they fight?"

"A good point, comandante," Strunk said, nodding and smiling.

They were interrupted by a buzzing of the phone on Loco's desk. He
picked it up, then said, "Of course, send them right in."

The door to his office opened and several men walked in. They stood at
attention, and one stepped forward.

"Comandante, my name is Sergei Bergman, and this is Helmut Bundt. We
will be commanding the forces of the New World Order sent by Bruno
Bottger to aid you in your fight for Mexico."

"Good morning, gentlemen," Loco said. He waved his hand to the side.
"And this is General Enrique Gonzalez, Commander in Chief of the
People's Liberation Army of South America. He will relay my orders to
you concerning the battle plans."

Bergman glanced at Bundt, then back at Loco. "I under-

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135

stood this was to be a joint operation, comandante, with shared command."

"Then, I'm afraid you understood incorrectly, Herr Bergman," Loco said,
his voice becoming hard. "I have spent many months advancing this far,
and we've suffered many casualties to push the Mexican soldiers back to
Mexico City. I told President Osterman that I did not need your help,
but she suggested I take it to speed things along. At no time did I
offer to give up my sole command of the armies that are to fight here."

"I see," Bergman said. "I will have to discuss this with General Bottger."

"You may discuss it with anyone you wish to, but it will not change
things. Either your soldiers fight under my command, or you may get back
on your planes and fly back to the South American jungle where you came
from."

Bergman nodded, snapped off a quick salute, and he and Bundt left the room.

Sergei used the scrambled radio in one of the C-130's to call Bruno
Bottger, who had remained in South America to see to the loading of the
remainder of his troops on the transport ships that would take them to
Mexico.

"Herr Bottger, I've run into some problems dealing with Perro Loco here
in Mexico," Bergman said.

"Such as?" Bottger asked.

"He states there will be no shared command as we discussed. He says our
troops are to fight under the control of his generals."

There was a hesitation before Bottger answered. "All right, we'll play
it his way for now. Do what you can under the circumstances, Sergei. The
important thing is to take Mexico City before Ben Raines can intervene.
Once we're in control of the capital of Mexico, I will deal with this
Perro Loco in the usual manner. Then we'll see who's in command."

136

"Yes, sir. I just hope these idiots know something about how to
prosecute a war," Sergei said.

"When I get there next week, if we see that his generals are totally
incompetent, we may have to take action sooner than planned. Until then,
try to do as much as you can to advance our troops toward Mexico City."

"Yes, sir, I'll try."

At the strategy meeting later that day, General Gonzalez outlined the
general plan of attack.

"Our troops will proceed up the Pan American Highway with our heavy
equipment, tanks, half-tracks, and personnel carriers. The lighter
equipment will be sent up the east coast on the smaller roads, taking
the less populated towns and clearing them of the Mexican troops
stationed there. Our advance will be covered in the air by several of
the Apache and Cobra helicopters provided us by President Osterman of
the U.S."

Bergman nodded slowly as he surveyed the topographical map of Mexico on
the table.

"And my troops, General Gonzalez?"

"We have fifteen of the Chinook choppers for the transport of your men.
They can each carry from thirty-five to forty troops, depending on the
weight of their weaponry. I want you and your men to proceed up the
western coast, to take and hold the states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, and
Michoacan on Mexico City's western flank."

"I see by the map that the country there is very desolate, with many
jungles and mountains," Bergman said, giving Bundt a sidelong glance.

Gonzalez nodded. "Yes. Therefore your men will be without heavy
equipment cover, no tanks or personnel carriers. But we have some
smaller helicopters available to give you what air support and cover you
may need, some Defenders and Kiowas."

"And the opposition we'll be facing?" Bergman asked.

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137

"Minimal, I suspect. Since the area is so remote, the Mexican Army is
depending primarily on local police and militia to defend it. Much of
your fighting will be in small villages and towns rather than in large
engagements with the Army."

"If the area is so remote and underpopulated, why bother with it at
all?" Bergman asked.

"The Mexican people must be made to realize there is to be a new
leadership in the country. Just taking Mexico City will not be enough.
We must show a presence throughout the countryside to maintain control
after we take the country."

Bergman had to admit the general had a point. It was not going to be
enough to merely take over the government. The people themselves must be
subjugated and made to understand a new world order was about to begin.

Besides, he reasoned to himself, better to let Loco's troops get chewed
up in fighting the Mexican Army. They would undoubtedly suffer
tremendous losses, while his troops would make short work of the
peasants and locals they were going up against. All in all, he thought,
the plan would work to their advantage.

"All right, General," Bergman said, "I'll have my men ready to move out
in the morning."

Gonzalez nodded. He knew Bergman probably thought his job was going to
be easy. Little did the German know how tough the mountain guerrillas
were when it came to defending their homes and villages.

"I'll see that the helicopters are made ready and you are provided with
all the supplies and ammunition you'll need for your campaign," Gonzalez
said.

"And how will we be resupplied once the fighting begins?"

"The Chinooks can travel back and forth for food and ammunition. They
cruise at one hundred thirty-eight knots, and have a range of over two
hundred miles fully loaded. We'll set up fuel dumps along the way and
there shouldn't be any problem."

138

"How about your troops along the coast? The roads there won't support
heavy trucks."

Gonzalez smiled. "That's why we're going to use ships and boats for
supplies along the way. We'll just send them up the coast to rendezvous
with the troops as they make their way northward. Supplying the troops
on the Pan American Highway won't be any problem, as our trucks can
travel along it quite easily."

"You seem to have it all figured out, General," Bergman said, admiration
in his voice.

"Thank you, Sergei. I'll give your communications officers the command
frequencies we'll be using so we can keep in touch during the battles.
If you run into trouble, I can use the Chinooks to send you reinforcements."

Bergman shook his head. "I'm sure that won't be necessary, General. My
men are the best in the world at guerrilla warfare. I'm sure a bunch of
peasants and policemen won't give us too much trouble."

Gonzalez smiled. Famous last words, he thought.

139

In the Presidential Palace in Mexico City, Presidente Eduardo Pena was
discussing their situation with General Jose Guerra, leader of his Army.

"But, presidente, General Raines of the SUSA has said his intelligence
sources say Perro Loco is about to make another move against us,"
General Guerra said.

Pena shook his head as he sipped dark red wine from a fluted, crystal
glass. "No, I do not believe it. This Perro Loco has given me his word
he will not move his troops any further north as long as we do not allow
Raines and his Army to come into Mexico."

"And you believe this man?" Guerra asked skeptically.

Pena slowly took a long, thick cigar out of a humidor on his desk, ran
it under his nose with an expression of almost ecstasy on his face, then
clipped off the ends with a golden cigar cutter. "Of course. After all,
we've shown him he cannot possibly prevail against us. Didn't we defeat
him soundly the last time he tried?" He smiled around the butt of the
cigar as he lit it with a gold lighter.

Guerra shook his head. The presidente was living in a dream world. He
knew they would never have stopped Loco without the help of the
Americans, but the young fool was too proud to admit it, even to himself
it seemed.

"But, presidente, perhaps it wouldn't hurt to at least let Raines send
us some of his equipment and weapons just in case Loco goes back on his
word. Our materiel is outdated

140

and all but useless against the more modern equipment at Loco's disposal."

The Mexican president stared at Guerra through clouds of blue smoke that
smelled faintly of rum. "How many times do I have to tell you, Jose?
Once we let the colossus to the north get a foot in our country, they
will want to take us over just as surely as this Perro Loco hombre."
Pena shook his head and turned his back on Guerra to stare out his
window at the peasants in the courtyard below, selling wares to the few
tourists that still came to their country.

Guerra clamped his jaw shut, lest he say something he would regret. His
president was a political animal who knew next to nothing about the
realities of modern warfare. He would be the ruin of the country.

"Yes, mi presidente," he said, dipping his head in obedience as he left
the office.

He had a bad feeling about the upcoming weeks. He felt sure Perro Loco
was not going to be satisfied with occupying only southern Mexico, and
would soon be moving northward toward Mexico City. He returned to his
office and began to make plans for that eventuality. He needed to
ascertain who he could count on if push came to shove and he had to
attempt to take over the government to save the country. He began to
make a list of men he would approach over the next few days to discuss
that very possibility. He would have to be very careful, for if the
presidente found out he was contemplating a coup, it would mean a firing
squad.

Buddy Raines was on the phone with Ben Raines. "Ben, I'm a little
worried about Harley and his team," Buddy said, his voice scratchy and
tinny from the scrambler.

"Why?" Ben asked.

"Jersey said she'd check in every day or two and give me a status
report, but I haven't heard from her for sometime now."

141

141

"Do you have any evidence of trouble?"

"Not directly, but we saw a number of C-130's taking off and heading
northward over the ocean yesterday. I think whoever is in charge of the
meres has moved the timetable up and is preparing to strike earlier than
we had heard."

"Well, they can't be planning to move twenty thousand men by airplane.
Have you seen any ships in the area that might be used as transports?"

"No, but they'd probably dock right on the island itself and not come
through Santos."

Ben thought Buddy was right to call him. It wasn't like Jersey not to
keep in touch with her backup. "If Harley and his team had to make a run
for it, do you know which way they'd come?"

Buddy hesitated while he consulted a map. "Yeah, once they crossed the
strait between the island and the mainland, there's only one road they
could come up. There's a river a couple of miles inland that would keep
them near the coast."

"Why don't you send a team of scouts along that route, just in case
they're on the run and need your help. If they had to leave in a hurry,
they might not have had time to pick up their radio."

"Good idea, Ben."

"And, Buddy, keep me informed, will you? I'll double-check with Mike
Post and see if our satellites have picked up any unusual shipping
activity in the area."

"Roger. Buddy out."

After he hung up the phone, Buddy went to the wardroom, where most of
his team were having coffee and a light snack.

"Captain Stryker," Buddy said to the leader of the SEAL squad on the
boat with them.

"Yes, sir," Stryker said, and got quickly to his feet.

"I'd like you to take a squad of men down the coast and see what's going
on there."

Stryker raised his eyebrows. "You think Harley's team is in trouble?"

142

Buddy shrugged. "Don't know, but they've been out of touch for a couple
of days. Wouldn't hurt to scout around down there near the passage to
the island and see if there's any unusual activity."

Stryker nodded. "Good. My men have been sitting on then-butts too long.
They need a little action to keep the rust off."

Buddy held up his hand. "Not too much action, Matt. I wouldn't want to
tip our hand unless Harley's team needs help."

"Sir," Stryker said with a hurt tone in his voice. "You know SEALs never
go looking for trouble."

Buddy laughed. "No, but trouble always seems to find you guys sooner or
later."

"Buddy," Corrie said as she stood up from the table where she and Beth
had been having coffee.

"Yes, Corrie?"

"Beth and I'd like to go along with Captain Stryker on this mission."

Stryker shook his head when Buddy turned to look at him for his approval.

"I don't think so, General Raines," he said, a doubtful expression on
his face. "We're liable to run into some heavy action out there in the
jungle."

Beth jumped to her feet. "That's nothing compared to the action you're
gonna see here, Captain, if you don't let us accompany you!" she
snarled, her face flushed red. "These people are part of our team, and
I'm damned if I'll sit on the sidelines while you go traipsing after them."

Stryker shook his head, a grin forming on his lips. "Well, if you feel
that strongly about it ..."

"Damned right we do," Corrie added.

Stryker shrugged. "Then it's okay with me, as long as you think you can
keep up."

Corrie glanced at Beth and smiled. "Just watch us, Captain."

143

143

Harley broke out of the jungle and stumbled onto clean, white sand at
the edge of the island. He stood for a moment, breathing in the salty
sea breeze and staring at the next step to freedom, which was a mere
mile or so away. The water in the strait didn't look too rough, and bent
in swells rather than true waves. Luckily there were no storms in the
area to make the crossing more difficult.

He searched the beach of the Ilha de Sao Sebastiao until he found two
small wooden boats pulled up on the sand past the high-water mark. They
were almost eight feet in length, and had oarlocks with wooden oars in
them. Neither had water in the bottom, a good sign they were seaworthy.

He gave a low whistle, and his team appeared out of the jungle that was
just yards from the beach. They slogged through sand that clung to their
boots, making them pick their feet up in a quirky high-step as they ran
toward him.

"Here's two boats. They ought to get us across the strait," he said,
shoving one down toward the gentle waves lapping at the sand in the
darkness.

While Hammer and Harley pushed the two boats into the water, Anna took a
roll of rope from her backpack and tied the gunwale of one boat to the
stern of the other.

Once the boats were floating on the waves, Coop and Jersey stumbled down
the beach, their arms around each other for support, and climbed into
the second boat, collapsing from the exertion of walking. Jersey was
coughing almost continuously, while Coop, not quite as sick, was
breathing heavily, his breath wheezing in his chest and sweat pouring
from his body as his eyes looked at the others, almost as if he didn't
quite recognize them in the darkness.

Anna shook her head when she noticed the flushed redness of their faces
and their quick, heavy breathing. "They're both burning up with fever.
The aspirin's not holding them."

Hammer dipped his hand in the water. "This water's pretty cold. Let's
pour some over them. It'll help lower their temperature while we paddle
across."

144

He took off his cap, filled it with cool saltwater, and poured it over
Jersey and Coop's recumbent forms lying in the bottom of the boat.

Coop sat up, sputtering and shivering from the cold water. "Goddamn!
What are you trying to do? Drown us?"

"Keep your voice down, Coop," Anna said in a low, soothing tone. "It's
for your own good. We need to get your temperatures down before you fry
your brains."

Coop wrapped his arms around his chest and shivered almost
uncontrollably. "Okay, okay, but hurry and get us across, will you?" He
glanced at Jersey lying next to him, concerned that the frigid water had
caused little reaction from her. "She won't last much longer."

Hammer and Harley each took an oar and began to paddle out into the
ocean, with Anna sitting between them, the rope to Coop's and Jersey's
boat in her hands.

It took the two big men almost an hour to paddle the mile across the
strait since the current was sideways and they had to struggle to keep
the boats on course for the opposite shore. They were sweating profusely
when they arrived at the other side, in spite of the coolness of the
evening air.

Once on the beach, after Coop had helped Jersey climb from their boat
and they'd lain propped up against a driftwood log near the jungle's
edge, Harley pushed both crafts out into the ocean and let the current
pull them out of sight into the darkness.

"No need leaving any traces of where we came ashore," he said.

He used a small hand flashlight to check his compass, Iften pointed
southward into the jungle and led the team off, threading his way
through the dense undergrowth as fast as he could.

"It's a damn shame we dMn't have time to pick up our radio," he murmured
to Anna, who was walking behind him.

"Yeah, we could've radioed Buddy to have someone meet us here and help
us back to the ship."

145

* * *

It took them almost an hour to find the one trail heading south through
the jungle. It was a wide, double-rutted path that showed signs of heavy
use by both vehicles and animals. The jungle grew right down to the ruts
on either side, and grew almost together overhead, giving the illusion
of traveling through a long, dark tunnel in the greenery.

Hammer put his hand on Harley's shoulder. "You think it's wise to use
this trail?" he asked. "That helicopter is bound to have let some men
off to set up an ambush."

Harley shook his head. "Can't be helped," he said. "There's no way
Jersey and Coop could make it if we stayed in the brush. This is our
only chance to get them back to the ship before they die."

Hammer unslung his SPAS and jacked a shell into the chamber. "Let me
take point a few hundred yards ahead," he said. "That way, when we hit
the ambush, you'll have a chance."

Harley stared at his friend. "That won't give you much leeway, pal," he
said.

Hammer grinned. "I won't need much. These clowns don't know enough to
set up an ambush without me being able to see it first."

Harley nodded, hoping Hammer was right. Otherwise, he'd be the first to
get it when the meres opened fire.

Hammer took off at a slow lope up the trail, his eyes coursing back and
forth, looking for signs of enemy presence in the bushes and dirt of the
trail.

Just before he got to a bend in the path, Hammer spotted a crumpled-up
cigarette package beside the trail. He squatted and picked it up. It was
a German brand. His lips curled in a half smile. "Stupid bastards," he
murmured to himself. He raised his nose and sniffed softly. He could
smell mold, mil-

146

dew, animal musk, and, yes, the faint smell of hot tobacco up ahead.

He crept back down the trail toward Harley and the others, holding up
his hand in the signal to be quiet as he approached. He winced, hearing
Jersey's cough from fifty yards away in the quiet of the jungle night,
and knew that the meres would have heard it too and would be ready for them.

"They're up ahead, about two hundred yards," Hammer said in a low voice
to Harley.

"Any idea how many?"

Hammer shook his head. "No. I couldn't see 'em, but I sure as hell
smelled 'em."

"What's the layout?"

"The road makes a bend to the right at about a hundred and fifty yards.
My guess is they've straddled the trail just beyond the bend and are
waiting for us to walk right up to 'em."

"You see any signs of mines or booby traps?"

"No, but that doesn't mean anything. The dirt is so soft along there,
they could've planted almost anything."

As Jersey doubled over in another coughing fit, Hammer glanced at her.
"I heard her from up there, so my guess is they did too. They gotta know
we're close, Harley."

"That means we don't have much time to plan anything. If we don't show
up soon, they're gonna come looking."

"You think we can flank 'em, come at 'em from the sides?" Hammer asked.

Harley shook his head. "Not in this jungle. They'd hear us coming before
we got close enough to attack."

"That means we gotta draw them out of their hiding places to us."

Harley smiled. "You got it. They think we're trapped between them and
the squad that was following us. How about we start a little commotion
back here and make them think the other squad's caught up with us?"

"Sounds good to me," Hammer said.

147

Harley looked around at his team. "Okay, guys, here's how we do it. ..."

Ronald Watanabe stuck his head out from the tree he was hiding behind
and stared down the trail. The darkness was unrelieved even by starlight.

"Where the hell are they?" he whispered in a hoarse voice to Lieutenant
Johnson a few feet away.

"I dunno, Ron," Johnson answered. "I heard 'em not ten minutes ago. They
should'a been here by now."

Watanabe was nervous and scared. He remembered how they'd been snookered
by this group before, and he could smell his fear-sweat over the dank,
musty smell of the jungle.

"Shit! They're up to something, Larry," he said.

"You don't think they're trying to get around behind us, do you?"
Johnson asked.

Suddenly, from up the trail they heard an explosion of small-arms fire
and two grenades going off, sending bright, yellow reflections of fire
coursing through the darkness. In the distance they heard a high-pitched
scream of terror, followed by more explosions of machine-gun fire.

"Goddamn!" Watanabe hollered. "LaFite and Blandis must've caught 'em
from behind."

Lieutenant Johnson burst from his cover, his M-16 held out before him.
"Shit, Ronny, let's go! We don't want Jean to get all the credit for
killin' those bastards."

"Come on, men!" Watanabe shouted. "They're trapped up ahead. Let's go
get 'em!"

The fifteen men with Watanabe and Johnson boiled out of the jungle like
ants from a disturbed nest, and began to run down the path, eyes alight
with Wood lust for the upcoming kill.

Running at the front of the pack, Watanabe thought he saw something out
of the corner of his eye and slowed, just as a

148

fragmentation grenade came floating out of the darkness and bounced once
on the trail in front of him.

He had time to say, "Oh shit!" and to realize he'd once again been
fooled, before the grenade exploded in a fireball of molten metal and
flames, taking both his legs off at the knees and killing him and
Johnson and five men behind them in the wink of an eye.

Two huge figures stepped from the jungle behind the group, SPAS shotguns
held at waist level, the figures' teeth visible in the darkness as they
grinned and opened fire.

The booming shotguns cut men down like a scythe going through grass, and
were joined by the higher-pitched chatter of an Uzi as Anna stepped out
onto the trail and raked her automatic weapon back and forth as if she
were watering a yard.

The remaining ten men didn't get a shot off as they were blown off their
feet and danced under an onslaught of bullets thick as a swarm of killer
bees flitting among them.

The air was redolent with the acrid odor of cordite, blood, and human
waste as seventeen men were killed in less time than it takes to tell it.

After it was over, Anna trotted back down the trail to find Jersey and
Coop where they were sitting, backs against trees, as they fired into
the air to distract the ambushers.

Anna shined her flashlight at them in the prearranged signal it was all
over.

Coop and Jersey dropped their weapons and leaned back, exhausted by the
efforts the ruse had taken on their weakened bodies.

Anna stood as close to them as she dared. "Come on, guys. It's clear
sailing ahead now."

Coop glanced at Jersey, and knew she wasn't able to go on. He took a
deep breath and climbed laboriously to his feet, then reached down,
grabbed her arm, and heaved her up over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

149

149

He turned toward Anna, who couldn't believe he'd found the strength to
lift Jersey to his shoulder like that.

"Let's go, girl," he said, attempting his usual grin. "We got a date
with a doctor."

150

Sergei Bergman picked up the phone after being told it was from his
commander.

"Yes, Herr Bottger?"

"I have bad news, Sergei. I have been unable to raise either team we
sent into the jungle after the spies."

Bergman sighed. He was not surprised after the way the spies had easily
handled his best men at the training camp. "I see," he said simply.

"That means you must press the attack as fast as you can. We must take
Mexico City before any word of... our secret weapon leaks out."

"I am sending the first teams out by helicopter today, Herr Bottger,"
Bergman said. "I will instruct them that speed is of the essence."

"Good. I should be there to join you within the week with the remainder
of our forces and equipment. Have you had any further trouble with Perro
Loco's men?"

"No. Now that they've given me our assignment, they seem content to let
me maneuver our troops in any manner I see fit."

"Excellent. I'll see you in a few days, Sergei."

"Good-bye, Herr Bottger."

General Enrique Gonzalez shook his second in command's hand. Lieutenant
Colonel Pedro Vega was to be the field commander for the forces being
sent against the Mexicans.

151

151

"Colonel Vega, I wish you the best of luck," Gonzalez said.

Vega nodded, eager to be off to prove himself in battle. He'd been in a
rear echelon during the previous battles, in charge of supplies, and now
hungered for the taste of battle. "Thank you, General. I will do my best
to bring honor to you and Perro Loco."

He whirled on his heels and left the office to climb into the brand-new
HumVee with his colonel's colors on tiny flags on the fenders. He took
the microphone off the hook under the dash and said into it, "Head out!
Forward to Mexico City!"

The column of light tanks, half-tracks, and armored personnel carriers
cranked up their diesel engines and began to roll out of the Navy base
toward the Pan American Highway a few miles distant.

The invasion of Mexico was once again afoot.

At the same time, Bergman saluted Herman Bundt, who was to lead
Bottger's forces on the western front. "Good luck, Herman," he said.

"Thank you, Sergei," Bundt answered. Then he climbed up into the lead
Chinook and made a circular motion with his hand over his head to
indicate the pilot should take off.

The Chinook, followed by fifteen others fully loaded with troops and
equipment, all lifted off. There were four Bell OH-58 Kiowas
accompanying them, flying point to protect against any aircraft the
Mexicans might send up against them. It would be an uneven match, for
the only choppers the Mexican government had were ancient Hueys of
Vietnam vintage. The brand-new Kiowas could fly at 120 knots, and were
armed with 20mm Miniguns as well as antitank missiles. They would make
short work of any Huey that dared to challenge them.

Bundt was taking this first load of a little over six hundred men
directly to the port cities of Salina Cruz and Luchitan in Oaxaca near
the Gulf of Tehuantepec. Loco had specified those cities should be taken
first, for then the Mexican Navy

152

wouldn't be able to use their ports to stage a surprise attack on his flank.

An additional benefit, if the ships in the port could be captured, would
be to use them to supply Bundt's troops by sea as they moved up the
coast, a much simpler exercise than relying solely on aircraft for resupply.

In the jungle, Harley Reno and his men brought their guns up to port
arms as several bright lights silhouetted them on the trail.

"Yo, Harley," Captain Stryker called.

Harley relaxed the grip on his SPAS and turned his head. "It's all
right, people, it's friendKes."

Stryker and the SEALs, along with Beth and Corrie, ran up to them on the
trail. When they got there, Stryker looked around at the dead men lying
everywhere on the trail and in the fringes of the jungle.

"We heard sounds of a firefight and thought you might need some help,"
he said, "but I can see now you did just fine by yourselves."

"Yes, sir," Harley said. "But we've got a couple of sick troops and we
may need some help getting them back to the ship."

Stryker leaned over and glanced past Harley to look at Coop, near the
rear of the group, still carrying Jersey on his shoulder.

"Jesus," Stryker said, awe in his voice. "He looks half dead."

"At least half, sir," Harley said. "They've contracted some sort of
sickness from a BW they discovered at the camp. We need to get them back
as soon as possible so the docs can go to work on them."

Stryker whirled around to his men. "Jones, Baxter, get to work on some
of those trees and fix up a travois. Now!"

153

153

As his men went to work preparing a sled out of jungle trees, he looked
back at Harley. "I suppose it's contagious?"

"Very," Harley said, "and it works fast. It's only been twenty-four
hours since Jersey was exposed, and she's very sick."

"Airborne?"

"Probably, though we don't know for sure."

Stryker pulled off his shirt, then his T-shirt. He put his outside shirt
back on, and poured water on his T-shirt from his canteen. He wrapped
the wet cloth around his nose and mouth. "This should do to keep us from
contracting the bug."

Everyone did the same with their shirts, and soon Jersey and Coop were
lying side by side on the travois and Stryker's men were taking turns
dragging them back toward the ship.

Beth and Corrie and Anna walked alongside the travois, giving words of
encouragement to Coop. Jersey was still unconscious, coughing in her sleep.

As they walked, Stryker got on the microphone of his communications gear
and radioed the ship.

"General Raines, we got a couple of people exposed to an unknown BW
here. They're pretty sick, so I need you to have the medic on the ship
get in touch with one of your doctors who's an expert in this and have
him tell us what to do when we get back."

"Roger, Captain Stryker," Buddy said. "We'll have everything ready by
the time you return."

Dr. Larry Buck spoke with Mike Peavy, the medic on the ship. "Symptoms
seem to be primarily respiratory?" he asked.

"Yes, sir, that's what I'm told. Evidently it acted pretty fast. Less
than twenty-four hours after exposure, both patients are very sick."

"Okay, here's what I want you to do. Limit exposure of the patients to
only one or two caregivers. The rest of the crew is

154

to stay well away. Full isolation precautions; gloves, masks, and
showers before and after contact."

"Yes, sir."

"As soon as you have them isolated, draw four vials of blood, two
red-top tubes, two purple tubes, and refrigerate them immediately. Start
cultures on all media of mucus and throat swabs. Got it?"

"Yes, sir."

"As soon as you've collected the specimens, start TVs and give
amoxicillin alternating with whatever aminoglycocide you have on board,
at full doses."

"Yes, sir," Peavy said, writing down Dr. Buck's orders as fast as he could.

"Then, once that's done, I want you to call me back with a detailed
description of their signs and symptoms, especially any rashes or skin
markings."

"Will do, sir."

"And, Peavy,"

"Yes, sir?"

"Be careful. Whatever this bug is, it's designed to spread fast. You
might want to use your extra antibiotics to give doses to everyone on
board, yourself included."

"Okay, Doc. I'll get on it as soon as they get here."

"And Ben Raines wants Harley Reno to be available for debriefing after
you talk to me."

"I'll tell him, sir."

After Dr. Buck finished talking to Peavy about the symptoms Coop and
Jersey were having, Harley got on the phone with Ben Raines.

"How's it look, Harley?" Ben asked.

"I don't know, General. They're both pretty sick, especially Jersey.
She's barely coherent most of the time."

"Damn! And the docs have no idea what it is?"

"Uh-uh."

155

155

"How about the leader of the meres? Any clues to his identity?"

"I've been wanting to talk to you about that, Skipper. I got to thinking
back to the time we spent in Africa a few years ago."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. The leaders of the mercs's training camp are all Germans, a
Bergman and a Bundt. Then we come upon a BW they're obviously working on
to use against us. That bring anybody to mind?"

Ben snapped his fingers. "You think it might be Bottger again?"

"It's a thought. It'd be an awfully big coincidence to have a bunch of
Krauts running the place and working on BW and not be connected to
Bottger somehow."

"But we thought Bottger was killed in that helicopter crash after we
took his headquarters," Ben said.

"What if he wasn't?" Harley asked. "Or, if it's not Bottger himself,
maybe it's another one of the crazies he had working under him or with
him. All of those New World Order guys had screws loose if you ask me."

"Good thinking, Harley. I'll have Mike Post get to work on it to see if
there's any record of Bottger or one of his known associates surfacing
in South America in the past five years."

"Skipper . . ."

"Yeah, Harley?"

"I just want you to know, Jersey and Coop infected themselves on purpose
in order to bring us a specimen of the bug those bastards are working
on. It was the bravest thing I've ever seen."

"I know, Harley. They're very special people, and we're going to pull
out all the stops to make sure they come out of this okay."

"Right, General. Harley out."

Harley hung up the phone, and walked down the corridor to the door to
the cabin that had been made into an isolation

156

room for Jersey and Coop. He stood there, staring through the window at
their bodies lying on the beds.

Jersey's skin was covered with sores and scabs, and was flushed red from
the temperature Peavy was having trouble controlling. As he watched, she
reared up in bed, coughing and gagging and choking until he couldn't
watch anymore.

He slowly turned and walked back down the corridor, wondering if he
would've had the courage to do what they'd done.

One of the SEALs who was working as Peavy's assistant while he took care
of Coop and Jersey appeared at the end of the corridor, syringe and
needle in hand.

"Mr. Reno, sir, time for your next injection of antibiotics."

"Again?" Harley asked.

"Yes, sir. Dr. Buck says we're all to get these every six hours until we
get back to base."

Harley shook his head as he rolled up his sleeve and followed the sailor
to the sick bay.

"Hell, I'd almost rather be shot than take all these injections."

The medic glanced up at him as he filled the syringe with colorless
fluid from a vial. "Being shot is easy, sir. The question is, would you
rather be like Coop and Jersey or get the shots?"

Harley sat down and clamped his jaw shut. "Well, when you put it that
way . . ."

After the medic stuck him, Harley asked, "Peavy say there's been any
change in Coop or Jersey?"

The young man glanced up, a sad look in his eyes. "Not yet. They're both
still running fevers, but the oxygen seems to be helping Jersey breathe
a little easier at least."

"Any idea what it is yet?"

The medic shrugged. "Dr. Buck says it sounds like maybe anthrax."

"Anthrax? But we've all been inoculated against that already."

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"Doc says this bug is special. Evidently, they've altered it so that the
old vaccines don't work."

"Great," Harley said. "That means even more shots when they get it
figured out."

The medic glanced up, a worried look on his face. "You mean, if they get
it figured out."

158 Twenty

Lieutenant Juan Villareal, called Juanito because of his height of
barely over five feet tall, walked around the perimeter of the
fortifications surrounding the town of Cardenas, just fifty miles north
of Villahermosa.

He'd received a call from General Jose Guerra himself, warning him to be
on the lookout for movement from the rebel forces stationed at the Navy
base at Pariso. The general had told him he and his outpost were very
important, as they would be the first to see the rebels if they decided
to attack northward.

Juanito took pains to explain this to the soldiers manning the gun
placements, that they should be very alert and that El Jefe himself had
his eyes on them.

Cardenas was a rather small village, typical of southern Mexico, with no
real importance other than its location just north of the rebels'
encampment. The citizens were for the most part poor dirt farmers who
barely grew enough food to feed themselves, with none left over to send
to market. A few of the men made the one-hundred-mile round-trip to hire
on as fishermen on the coast, but that pay was low and it meant spending
weeks away from their families doing extremely hard work on deep-sea
shrimpers and long-line fishing boats.

The Pan American Highway ran smack through the middle of the town. Hence
its importance as an early warning device for the generals in Mexico
City, for there was no other way

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the rebels could travel northward if they decided to press their war
against Mexico.

Juanito clapped a young soldier on the back as he stood next to the
fifty-caliber machine gun in his sandbagged outpost on the edge of town.
The soldier put down the field glasses he'd been staring through and
smiled at Juanito, who was a very popular commanding officer.

"Hola, Juanito," the boy said.

Juanito took a pack of American cigarettes out of his breast pocket and
offered one to the boy.

"Hola, Carlos," he said. "Cigarette?"

"Ah, americano, eh?" Carlos said, reaching for the pack. It was a real
treat when anyone had American cigarettes, as they were much better than
the Mexican ones, which tasted like so much bullshit when they burned,
if you could keep them going at all.

"Si," Juanito answered, pulling one out for himself and lighting both
with a kitchen match. "The generalissimo knows how important we are to
the safety of Mexico, so he arranges for these to be flown in on the
weekly supply plane."

Carlos glanced around at the adobe huts that made up most of the
village. "Why is this flyspeck of a town so important?" he asked.

"We are the closest to the rebels," Juanito answered, though trying to
explain this to a young boy with no education and a very limited
intellect would be impossible, he thought.

"But I thought the war was over," Carlos said, a puzzled look on his
face. "Didn't the rebel leader himself, Perro Loco, promise El
Presidente he would not move farther north?"

"And since when did you begin to believe the promises of politicians, or
military leaders for that matter?" Juanito said with a laugh as he took
a deep drag of his cigarette and blew smoke from his nostrils.

As Carlos started to answer, Juanito noticed a large dust cloud on the
horizon to the south.

"Carlos, give me those glasses," he said, taking the binocu-

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lars from around the soldier's neck and putting them to his eyes.

He choked on the smoke curling up into his face from the cigarette in
the corner of his mouth when he saw a line of tanks and half-tracks
coming up the Pan American Highway, with hundreds of soldiers walking
along the side of the road next to the vehicles.

"Holy Mary, Mother of Christ!" Juanito whispered. "They're coming!"

Carlos took a last drag of his cigarette and threw it in the dirt,
grinding it out with his boot heel. He turned and crouched behind his
fifty-caliber machine gun, jacking the loading lever back to pull a
shell into the firing chamber.

"Don't fire too soon," Juanito ordered. "Wait until they are within
range. I've got to go radio Mexico City and tell them Loco's on the move."

Carlos nodded, sweat breaking out on his brow under his helmet. He knew
he was going to die in the upcoming battle, and he hoped he would remain
brave and not bring disgrace on his family.

Juanito didn't stop running until he reached the small room above a
cantina he used as his office. He slapped his radio operator's feet off
his desk and yelled, "The rebels are coming! Get me Mexico City on the
radio."

After a moment of fiddling with dials and frequencies, the man handed
the handset to Juanito.

"This is Lieutenant Juan Villareal. I must speak with General Guerra
immediately!"

A tinny voice came out of the speaker. "The general is having his
breakfast and cannot be disturbed," the voice said.

Juanito rolled his eyes heavenward and gritted his teeth. Here he was
about to die to protect a man who couldn't be called from his table.

He took several deep breaths to calm himself, and spoke in a reasonable
tone. "Then, when the general is finished with

161

his eggs and bacon, would you inform him the rebels are on the move and
are about to attack Cardenas?"

"And just where is Cardenas?" the voice asked, as if discussing the weather.

"The general will know, if you ever give him my goddamned message!"
Juanito shouted before he slammed the handset back onto the radio.

He ran to a corner closet, put on his helmet and side arm, and picked up
an ancient M-l carbine dating from World War II. He walked rapidly
toward the door. Just before exiting, he turned to the radio operator.
"Try and notify as many of the neighboring outposts as you have time
for. They must do everything they can to get ready for the onslaught."

The radio operator's eyes widened. "Can we hold them off, Juanito?"

Juanito grinned sourly. "Can a pig fly?"

Juanito made the rounds of his men, pulling some from the sandbagged
outposts and putting them on roofs around the village. There was no way
they could stop the rebels, but he damn sure intended to make it
expensive for them to take the town.

Carlos waited until the rebel tanks and half-tracks came within five
hundred yards before he opened up with the fifty-caliber.

He gritted his teeth and pulled the trigger. The big gun exploded and
began to chatter and buck in his hands as it spewed forth hundreds of
bullets per minute at the rebels.

Several of the soldiers walking alongside the tanks fell in their
tracks, and the others scrambled to the sides of the road and fell
facedown in the small ditches that ran there.

Hundreds of nine-millimeter bullets ripped into the sandbags around
Carlos's emplacement, but he kept his head down and continued to fire
until the barrel of the fifty-caliber was so hot it was smoking.

162

Carlos shifted the barrel to the tank and peppered it with fire, but the
bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the armor plate of the tank.

The turret slowly swiveled until Carlos was looking down the black hole
of the long barrel of the tank's cannon.

He paused in his firing long enough to cross himself and whisper a
prayer to the Virgin Mary. Then he squatted and pulled again on the
trigger, sending a steady stream of bullets into the tank.

He saw a puff of smoke and flame shoot out of the tank's barrel, and had
time only to blink before the shell hit his outpost, exploding on impact
and blowing sandbags, machine gun, and Carlos into a million pieces.

The other outposts opened fire, and men around the tanks and half-tracks
burrowed even deeper into the caliche and sand around the Pan American
Highway, waiting for the tanks and half-tracks to soften the village up
for them.

Henry Gomez jerked on the tube of the TOW rocket in his hands, extending
and arming the handheld antitank rocket. It was one of the few modern
weapons that had been sent to Cardenas, and he intended to make it count
in the battle raging around him. TOW stood for Target On Wire, and the
shell, when fired, was guided by a fine wire attached to the launcher.
All the man firing it had to do was keep the sights on the target and it
would hit it up to fifteen hundred yards.

Henry leaned over the parapet of the roof he was on in time to see the
tank blow Carlos into dust. His lips pressed into a fine line-Carlos was
from the same village as Henry and they'd played together as children
before joining the Army together to see the country.

He put the TOW rocket launcher to his shoulder and sighted on the tank.
Taking a deep breath and holding it, he depressed the trigger.

A giant whoosh and the rocket was on its way, the wire attached to it
visible as a gleaming line in the sun.

When a bullet tore into Henry's left side, just above his

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waist, he jerked to the side, sending the rocket off course momentarily.

With almost superhuman effort, he straightened back up and resighted the
tank. The rocket curved back and struck the tank just below the turret.

For a second, nothing happened, and Henry thought perhaps the rocket was
a dud. Then the tank exploded in a giant fireball, sending a plume of
black smoke and flames two hundred yards into the air. Seconds later,
the fifty-caliber machine-gun bullets and several of the tank shells
inside exploded. It was like the finest fireworks Henry had ever seen.
Dozens of the soldiers walking behind the tank were mowed down like a
harvester going through a wheat field.

Just as Henry's lips curled in a smile and he whispered, "Gotcha," an
M-16 bullet entered his forehead, exploding his brain into mush and
killing him instantly.

Juanito, observing this from the upper room of a nearby building, made a
fist and said, "Way to go, Henry."

The burning tank was blocking the roadway, and had halted the rebels'
advance for a short time.

Carlos stuck his M-l out the window and began to fire down upon the
troops pinned down at the road's edge. He managed to kill two and wound
another three before he heard a strange whoop-whoop sound in the hot,
dry air.

He glanced up in time to see a machine out of hell. It was a coal-black
HueyCobra helicopter coming down at the town out of the sun. Juanito
recognized it from the classes he'd taken in Officers' Candidate School.
For some reason, the fact that it carried eight TOW antitank missiles
and two rockets, and sported a 20mm cannon, popped unbidden into his mind.

He jerked his M-l up at a forty-five-degree angle and began firing at
the Cobra as fast as he could pull the trigger. He had little hope of
doing any damage. It was like trying to hit a hawk flying overhead with
a .22 rifle.

He must have done something, however, for the gunship

164

changed course slightly, pointed its ugly-looking snout at him, and dived.

He could see the three barrels of the 20mm cannon belching fire and
flame as the helicopter roared at him out of the sky at ninety miles an
hour.

The windowsill and the walls on either side of Juanito dissolved in a
maelstrom of debris and splinters as three hundred 20mm slugs tore
across the building. Juanito was thrown backward against a far wall, a
row of red flowers blooming on his chest where the slugs had stitched a
line across his body.

He groaned, blood bubbling from his lips. His last thought was to wonder
if the general had finished his breakfast yet.

Lieutenant Colonel Pedro Vega had his driver pull closer to the
outskirts of Cardenas. He'd learned from the previous commander of Perro
Loco's troops, who'd been killed in his staff command car by a land mine
while riding point, not to stray too close to the front until most of
the action was over with. Vega kept his HumVee well to the back of the
forward line of his troops.

The action had slowed to an occasional pop as another sniper or hidden
defender of Cardenas was found and dispatched by Vega's men. All of the
sandbagged outposts and gun emplacements had been destroyed. In fact,
most of the inhabitants of Cardenas had been killed along with the
soldiers defending the town. The streets were littered with bodies of
women, children, old folks, and even cats and dogs. No one had been
spared by the invading army.

Vega stepped out of his HumVee and stood next to the scorched sandbags
and melted, destroyed fifty-caliber machine gun, still red with Carlos's
coagulated blood on it.

Vega walked over and leaned his arm on the bent and twisted metal.
"Miguel," he said to his driver. "I am ready."

Miguel Hernandez took the colonel's digital camera from a

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bag hanging by a strap around his neck and quickly snapped off a couple
of shots.

"Be sure to get the bodies on the street in the background," Vega
ordered, adjusting his stance a bit.

Miguel shifted to the side, sighted through the viewfinder, and snapped
two more times.

Vega nodded. "Good. Now get on the radio and have the tanks level the town."

"But, Colonel Vega," Miguel protested mildly, "all of the soldiers have
been killed or already have run away to the fields to hide."

Vega fixed his driver with a steely stare. "Miguel, do you enjoy the
privilege of driving for me?"

"Si, mi comandante!" Miguel snapped smartly.

"Then please do not argue with my orders. I want this town leveled to
the ground as a lesson to the other towns that stand between us and
Mexico City. Tonight, after we bivouac for the evening, I will print up
hundreds of copies of the pictures and have one of the helicopters fly
ahead and drop them on the towns to the north of us."

Miguel nodded, as if he understood what his commanding officer was
saying and the advanced reasoning behind it. He did know that every
night the colonel downloaded the pictures that had been taken of him in
various leadership roles to a laptop computer and printed them out for
his scrapbook.

Miguel thought this quite silly, but then he knew little of the thought
processes of officers and their need for constant aggrandizement.

166

Herman Bundt, who, unlike Colonel Vega, flew in the lead helicopter,
leaned forward and stared through the Plexiglas of the front windshield
of the big Chinook chopper.

They were only a few miles from the neighboring towns of Luchitan and
Salina Cruz that lay on the shores of the Gulf of Tehuantepec.

His eyes, experienced in the art of warfare, noted that though the
region was mountainous and jungled inland, it leveled out into a
relatively flat area near the shores of the gulf. It was a perfect
staging point to test his mercenary troops in their first under-fire
battle under his command.

He leaned over and pointed downward to the pilot. "Drop us off right
there, where the jungle thins out and becomes a sandy plain on the
outskirts of Luchitan."

"Roger," the pilot said, nodding his understanding. He spoke briefly on
the ship-to-ship radio to let the other pilots know the plan.

"Have the Kiowas fly low over the town to draw any fire while we unload
the troops. That's our most vulnerable time," Bundt ordered.

The pilot nodded, and relayed his orders to the pilots of the Kiowa
gunships accompanying them.

The pilot grabbed Bundt's arm and pointed toward the west. Three dark
shapes rose like huge buzzards from a tiny airstrip north of the town.

"Skids," the pilot said over the intercom.

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"What?" Bundt asked, not familiar with the term.

"Skids. Old Huey helicopters, the kind that flew in Vietnam. They
must've picked us up on their radar."

The pilot spoke again into his radio, and Bundt saw the Kiowas that were
escorting them peel off into attack formation.

"Those ships must be forty years old," Bundt said. "Our Kiowas will make
short work of those antiques."

The pilot turned his head to glance up at Bundt. "Don't be too sure. The
skids are big, slow, and clumsy, but they're tough to bring down. 'Bout
the only way to down one is to hit the prop or to kill the pilot and
copilot."

"How are they armed?" Bundt asked, more out of curiosity than out of any
worry about the Kiowas.

"Main weapon is a fifty-caliber machine gun in the side hatchway. The
gunner is strapped to the chopper walls so he won't be thrown out when
the chopper dives and banks," the pilot answered shortly.

As the Chinooks hovered feet above the ground and the assault troops
bailed out of them like ants from a disturbed mound, Bundt couldn't help
but stand and watch the air battle taking place in the skies over Luchitan.

The Hueys moved forward in a modified-V formation, with the two lead
choppers flying almost sideways so the big fifty-caliber machine guns in
their hatches could be brought to bear, while the back chopper at the
apex of the V gave them cover on their flanks. Evidently the men flying
the big helicopters were experienced in combat, unlike the men Bundt had
flying his Kiowas, who were barely out of flight school.

First Lieutenant Gunter Kalb, pilot of the lead Kiowa, saw the lumbering
Hueys and almost laughed. "No need to waste one of our missiles on
those," he said on the intercom to his copilot. "I'll just rake him with
our Minigun and blow him out of the sky."

The copilot, Hans Gruber, laughed into the mike. "Look how slow they
are," he said. "It's a wonder they don't fall from the sky like bloated
cows."

168

Kalb jerked up on the collective in his left hand and advanced the
throttle, and the Kiowa put its nose down and screamed through the air
at the Hueys, who were going so slow they almost seemed to be hovering,
as if waiting to be slaughtered.

When he got within range, Kalb depressed the trigger on the 20mm Minigun
in the Kiowa's nose, and grinned at the vibration from the gun as it
spewed forth death at a thousand rounds a minute.

Kalb felt an almost sexual thrill as he saw the tracers in his ammo
stitch a line of holes across the body of the Huey, expecting it to
burst into flames and fall from the sky.

His thrill turned to panic as he saw the Huey shudder under the impact
but remain otherwise unaffected.

As his ship rapidly closed on the Huey, he jerked back on the collective
and tried to turn, but it was too late.

He could almost see the gunner's teeth in the wide-open hatchway of the
Huey as he grinned and opened fire with his big fifty.

The gun jumped and shook in the gunner's hands, flame shooting from the
barrel along with hundreds of molten lead bullets that had the Kiowa's
name written on them.

The Plexiglas windshield of the Kiowa shattered, sending hundreds of
razor-sharp shards of plastic into Kalb's and Gruber's faces and eyes.

Kalb let go of the collective and the throttle to cover his ruined face
just as the stream of fifty-caliber bullets tore into the Kiowa's fuel
tanks.

The chopper exploded in a ball of flame and smoke, sending pieces of the
ship and its pilots floating toward earth.

"God damn it!" Bundt screamed on the ground when he saw the ship
disintegrate above him. "You stupid bastards," he growled to himself,
"use your missiles."

Almost as if the other pilots heard Bundt's plea, they peeled off from
their attack and climbed out of range of the other

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Hueys's machine guns. They made a wide circle overhead, able to stay out
of range due to their crafts's superior airspeed.

Viktor Lassinov, a Russian pilot who'd hired on with the mercenaries
under Bruno Bottger, vowed not to make the same mistake his friend,
Gunter, had. He lined the lead Huey up on his mast-mounted sight and
flipped the switch arming his missiles. When he pressed it, the ship
shuddered as the missile was launched, and he could see the smoke of its
trail as it arrowed toward the Huey.

The pilot of the Huey, who must have seen the missile streaking toward
him, turned the big, clumsy Huey almost on its back in a desperate
attempt to dodge the missile, but his ship was just too slow.

Seconds after the missile launch, the Huey disappeared in a ball of
smoke and flame, and its wreckage soon joined that of its previous
victim on the ground next to the jungle below.

The other two Hueys, seeing they were outgunned, turned tail and raced
to the northwest, toward the neighboring town of Salina Cruz on the coast.

When the Kiowas turned to give chase, Bundt grabbed the mike through the
window of the Chinook and ordered them back.

"Leave the bastards alone," he cried. "We need you to cover our attack
of the town."

The Kiowas dutifully gave up the chase and flew back down over the
outskirts of Luchitan, raking the defenders' emplacements with fire from
their Miniguns and blowing a couple of ancient tanks up with their missiles.

Bundt wasted no time. He spread his hundreds of troops out to the right
and left and ordered them forward, to attack the town.

All in all, Bundt felt his men acquitted themselves rather well. Though
this was their first test under his command, most of the mercenaries had
seen action many times before, for many different commanders. They
fought not out of patriotism or any conviction for one sort of
government over another, but

170

out of greed. And Bruno Bottger was paying them very well indeed for
their loyalty.

Most of the men carried Kalashnikov AK-47's, or the Chinese equivalents
of them, and they poured a murderous fire into the defenders of the town
of Luchitan.

A seaside port city, it wasn't built for defense from a land-based
attack, most of its buildings being situated near the wharves and waters
of the gulf, from which almost all of its citizens earned their meager
livings.

Wisely, perhaps, the Mexican government hadn't wasted much equipment or
manpower on such a small, unimportant village, so the defenders were
mostly men and boys of the village who had little or no battlefield
experience.

Nevertheless, they never gave up, but fought to the last man with a
ferocity only those defending their homes could show. In the final
event, the scouts and rangers of Bundt's force had to go door to door to
root out the men who were fighting them. Bundt figured he lost more men
to snipers than to the sandbagged outposts at the edge of the village.

By nightfall, all of the male inhabitants of Luchitan were dead or lying
severely wounded in the streets. Most of the females were also, but the
men had managed to capture quite a few. They shot the old and ugly ones,
and saved the young, pretty girls for their nighttime entertainment.

As Bundt sat at a table in the mayor's office, where he'd set up his
radio to contact the base at Villahermosa, he could hear the screams and
pleas of the women as they were being beaten and raped repeatedly by the
mercenaries.

He shook his head. Sometimes he felt this was what most of the men
signed up for, rather than the money they were paid. Where else could
you get a license to rape and pillage and be above any law other than God's?

Bundt was, on the other hand, a professional soldier, and he despised
what was happening now in the town he and his troops had conquered. But
he was also a realist, and he knew

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if he tried to stop what the men were doing, he'd end up with a bullet
in the back before the campaign was half over.

No, better to let the animals have their fun as a reward for their
fighting. After all, he reasoned to himself, one couldn't win a war
fighting with choirboys.

He keyed the radio on the frequency General Enrique Gonzalez had given him.

"General," he said when Gonzalez was on the line.

"Yes, Colonel Bundt."

"Luchitan is ours," Bundt said simply.

"And your losses?" Gonzalez asked.

"One Kiowa, and thirty troops."

"And Salina Cruz?"

"We advance on it tomorrow at first light," Bundt said.

"Good. Our men are having similar success. Perhaps it will not be as
difficult as we thought to take Mexico City."

"Good night, General," Bundt said. He didn't bother to tell the man
these faraway towns had been practically ceded by the Mexican
government, and that the closer they got to the capital, the fiercer the
fighting was going to be. The man ought to know, without me telling him,
that the leaders of this country are not going to give up their
positions of power, prestige, and wealth without a hell of a fight,
Bundt thought.

Bundt hung up the radio mike and leaned his head on the table. He was
desperately tired, and smelled of cordite and gunpowder and blood and
excrement. He wondered if he could find the energy to bathe before he
ate supper.

He raised his head and saw a bottle of whiskey on the sideboard in the
mayor's office. He got up, picked up the bottle, and walked slowly back
toward his bunk in the next room.

"The hell with eating," he muttered as he twisted the cap off the bottle
and put it to his lips.

Perhaps if he drank enough, it would drown out the sounds of women's
screams and the hoarse shouts of men having their way with them.

172

"Well," Mike Post said to Ben Raines, "it looks like the stuff has
finally hit the fan."

Ben looked up from the papers on his desk. "You mean Perro Loco has
started his move northward?"

Mike took the pipe out of his mouth. "Yeah. We have reliable reports his
forces leveled the town of Cardenas just north of Villahermosa. Word is
they left nothing in the town alive, not even the animals."

"Anything else?"

"Uh-huh. Our German friends have started a similar move on the western
coast, taking out Luchitan and beginning an attack on Salinas Cruz on
the Gulf of Tehuantepec."

"Any word yet on who their big man is?"

Mike nodded. "Yeah, and you're not gonna like it. Seems some of the
natives in Brazil speak of a man with a thick German accent. They have a
name for him in Portuguese which translates roughly as 'man with no face.' "

"No face?"

"Sounds like he's got some terrible burn scars that have left him
without much expression."

"Burn scars, huh? I guess it could be our old friend Bruno Bottger after
all."

"That certainly ties in with our team down there finding out they're
working on BW. Bottger was always a fan of better killing through
chemistry."

"What's the word on Jersey and Coop?"

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"The SEALs are taking the ship out to sea and are going to steam at full
throttle toward us. Meanwhile, Doctor Buck is on the way down there in
one of our Ospreys."

"But there's no place for an Osprey to land at sea," Ben said.

Mike grinned. "Buck wouldn't take no for an answer. He says he'll
parachute into the sea and let the SEALs pick him up. He wants to see
the cultures firsthand, and wants to make sure Jersey and Coop are
getting the care they need."

Ben laughed. "Can you imagine Doc Chase doing that?" he asked. "There's
something to be said about having a young hotshot as our medical officer."

Mike nodded. "And, best of all, Buck's no fool. He's having all the
information he's gathered forwarded to Doc Chase at his quarters. He
says there's no one else in the world with as much experience with BW as
Lamar."

"We're going to need both of them if we're going to manage to get a
vaccine in time for it to do any good."

"What about our plans for the U.S.?" Mike asked. "I've also gotten
reports from Pat O'Shea and Dan Gray that Os-terman's troops are
starting to move southward toward our borders."

Ben nodded and glanced at the reports on his desk. "Yeah, but no real
battles yet, just some movements suggesting that Osterman plans to try
and keep us busy so we won't have time to help Mexico if they ever ask
us to."

"What's the Mexican president say?"

"The fool still thinks he can handle Loco by himself. I personally think
he'll hold off asking for our help until they're knocking on his door .
. . and then it'll be too late to save Mexico City."

"So, we just sit and wait?" Mike asked.

"Oh, no. I've just sent Jackie Malone and a couple of hundred of our
best scouts up to our northern border with the U.S. They're going to
parachute in and start to play some

174

games with Osterman on her own turf. I imagine she'll be plenty pissed
when Jackie starts raising hell up there."

"Sounds like things are starting to get interesting. What are your plans
personally?"

"I'm going to manage things from here for right now. When my team gets
back, we'll decide where the hottest spot is, and then I'll go down
there and see what we can do."

"Don't you think it's about time to heed Doc Chase's recommendation and
stay out of the field?" Mike asked.

Ben shook his head. "I'm not that old yet, Mike. And I hate being an
armchair quarterback. I've got to be involved in the action to see how
things are going."

Mike held up his hands. "Okay . . . okay, don't get your panties in a
bunch."

Ben laughed. "Believe me, Mike, I'll know when it's time to hang it up."

Jackie Malone stood in the cargo bay of the big C-130 plane and looked
behind her. Her second in command on this mission was a small man named
Tiger Tanaka. He stood only five feet four and had a slim body that
belied the muscles that rippled under his skin. He was an advanced
sensei of several martial-arts schools, and was second to none in
hand-to-hand combat.

He smiled at her as he put on the helmet that would allow him to breathe
during the upcoming HALO drop. HALO stood for High Altitude, Low
Opening, and was one of the most dangerous of all parachute drops. They
would bail out at twenty thousand feet, encased in a fall body suit
similar to the ones worn by scuba divers, with self-contained oxygen
masks and altitude gauges strapped to their wrists. They wouldn't open
their specially designed chutes until they were under five thousand
feet, at which time they'd be falling at over 120 miles an hour toward
the earth.

HALO flights were designed to drop combatants behind en-

175

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emy lines, where the hang time in chutes had to be minimized so as to
get the men on the ground before the enemy knew they were there.

Tiger gave Jackie a small nod, his grin magnified behind the Plexiglas
of his oxygen helmet, indicating the men were ready for the drop.

Two hundred men were crammed into the cargo bay, and on the jump
master's signal, they would all walk out the back of the plane and jump
off a specially designed ramp that was to be lowered just before the jump.

Jackie tried to smile back, but her face wouldn't cooperate. She'd
received a crash course in HALO jumps, but she'd never done one before
and the truth was, she was scared shitless. The idea of jumping out into
the darkness, into air that was several degrees below freezing, and
falling like a stone for what was surely going to seem an eternity, just
didn't appeal to her at all.

Jackie was a control freak, and didn't like any situation in which she
wasn't in complete control of her destiny. It was going to be hard to
put her faith in the small altitude gauge on her wrist. If she was off
in opening her chute by even twenty seconds, she'd end up splattered all
over the countryside below.

The jump master stood beneath a red light at the end of the cargo bay,
an intercom to his ear. When he got the word from the pilot, he flipped
a switch turning the light from red to green, and the ramp at the rear
of the ship lowered.

He gave Jackie a thumbs-up, and she took a deep breath and stepped out
into the darkness.

As she fell, she put her hands at her sides and her feet together and
shot downward like an arrow toward the ground below. She counted to
herself so as to know when to start looking at her altitude gauge,
hoping she wouldn't wait too long.

Finally, she pulled her right arm up against the resistance of the air
and glanced at the gauge . . . time to do it!

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Grasping the D-ring on her chest, she gave a yank. At first nothing
happened, and she had time to think, "Oh, shit! My chute didn't open."

Just as she was reaching for her backup chute cord, she felt as if she'd
hit a wall as her chute opened and slowed her from 120 miles an hour
down to ten in a couple of seconds. "Damn, it's a good tiling I
double-tied my boots, or they'd have been jerked off," she thought, her
heart hammering with relief as she slowed to what seemed like a crawl
after the speed of her initial fall.

After discussion with Otis Warner and General Joe Winter, Ben Raines and
Jackie had decided her group should parachute into eastern Iowa, between
Cedar Rapids and Davenport. The area was mostly rural, with large
expanses of rolling hills, few towns, and no Army bases of any size.
Best of all, it was only a few hundred miles from Indianapolis, where
Claire Osterman had her headquarters.

Ben and Jackie felt they could sow the seeds of hate and discontent
best, as well as be a major embarrassment to Osterman, if they struck
close to her main base.

Jackie hit the ground, and immediately curled into a ball and rolled, as
the jump instructor had told her to. She ended up in a large field of
some sort of maize, with plants growing to four feet in height. She
rolled up her chute and kept her eye on the sky above her, as one of the
main dangers with this many troops dropping was that one would land on
your head if you didn't keep an eye out.

Slipping out of her jump suit and helmet, she immediately keyed a signal
device on her shirt that would lead the others to her, so they could
rendezvous in the dark.

As usual, Tiger Tanaka was the first to reach her. He had a Mini-Uzi on
a strap around his neck, and held it at port arms as he turned in a
small circle, making sure no one was around to give them any trouble.

Within an hour the entire force had congregated in the middle of the field.

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"Injury report," Jackie said to Tiger.

"We lost six men, three whose chutes malfunctioned, two who didn't open
soon enough, and one who landed on a fence post," Tiger said in a calm
voice.

"Damn!" Jackie said with feeling.

"That is a very acceptable ratio for a HALO drop, Miss Jackie," Tiger said.

She glanced at him. "Try telling that to the poor bastards who hit the
ground at over a hundred miles an hour," she said. Jackie hated nothing
more than losing any of her troops.

She knelt in the field and pulled out her map and compass. After
studying them for a couple of minutes, she stood up. "All right, men, we
head out south by southwest. We're only a couple of miles from Cedar
Rapids. I expect us to be in control of the town by daylight."

Jackie sent squads out in a circular ring around the town. The first
objective was to cut the town off from the outside world.

All telephone lines coming into the city were cut, and transformers were
blown off their poles so that merely splicing the wires back together
wouldn't resume service.

Next, the cellular microwave transmitting towers were dynamited,
destroying the usefulness of any cell phones that might still be in use
in the town.

After all communications, other than shortwave or CB radio, were halted,
Jackie led a squad to take over the town's authority figures. Separate
squads were sent to each police station as well as the mayor's and city
council's offices.

Most of the police, when faced with commandos carrying Uzis and/or
M-16's, gave up quietly. A couple who tried to resist were shot, but
only one had to be killed.

By 0800, the town was in Jackie's hands. Roadblocks were set up on all
roads leading into or out of the town, with her troops dressed as local
policemen. The story used to turn away

178

travelers was that there was a plague of unknown origin in the town and
it had been placed in quarantine for the time being.

Interrogation squads began their work, ferreting out citizens who were
sympathetic to the SUSA's aim to prevent another war with the U.S. These
men and women were issued guns and allowed to resume some of the
governmental functions of the city.

Jackie's plan was to delay face-to-face confrontation with the Army of
the U.S. as long as she could. She wanted to take as many small towns
and villages as possible before Osterman and her cronies knew they were
under siege.

Once Cedar Rapids was secure, she left a token force to hold the town
while she and the rest of her troops moved on to Davenport, a hundred
miles closer to Indianapolis and Claire Osterman's home grounds.

The guerrilla war had begun.

179

After Captain Matt Stryker and his men picked Dr. Larry Buck out of the
ocean in a Zodiac, along with a large waterproof bag containing his
equipment, they took him to the ship.

Thirty minutes later, dressed in a state-of-the-art Racal suit to
prevent contamination, he was examining Jersey and Coop in the cabin
used as a medical ward.

He had Jersey sit up in bed, her back propped up against pillows, and
raised her gown. He put a stethoscope to her chest, just under her left
breast.

"Breathe in and out slowly," he said, his voice muffled inside the
self-contained helmet of the orange Racal suit.

Jersey looked much better after her course of antibiotics, but she was
still having fever and chills and still coughing frequently.

After listening for a few moments, Buck nodded and stepped back from the
bed. "Your lungs are sounding better, Jersey. Some of the pneumonia is
clearing."

"They don't feel much better," she complained. "I still feel like an
elephant is sitting on my chest."

He nodded. "That's typical of respiratory anthrax, but if Captain
Stryker's medic hadn't pumped you full of antibiotics, you'd be dead by
now."

From the next bed, Coop, who'd turned his head when Jersey's chest was
bared, spoke up. "I always said Jerse was too damned tough for any bug
to kill."

180

Coop, who hadn't been as far along in the sickness when the antibiotics
were started, was looking almost well.

Buck examined him by listening to his lungs and poking around on his
stomach to see if the swelling in his liver had gone down, and
pronounced him cured of the infection.

"Jersey, however, is going to have to stay in quarantine for a few more
days."

Coop bounded out of bed and began to put his clothes on. "Looks like
you're going to lose your roommate, Jerse," he said with a grin.

She turned her pale face toward him and tried to smile. "I never thought
I'd say this, Coop, but I'm gonna miss you."

He stepped to her bedside and leaned down to plant a gentle kiss on her
cheek. "I'm gonna miss you too." He stood up and smiled. "But I'm sure
as hell not going to miss those blasted needles the medic has been
sticking in me every hour."

Buck smiled and shook his head. "No, I don't believe you are going to
miss those, Coop. Now that you're cured, your blood is full of
antibodies to the bacteria. We're going to need to get lots of it to try
and use it to make a vaccine against this new strain of anthrax."

Jersey gave a short laugh. "Poor Coop. Out of the frying pan and into
the fire."

"You mean I'm gonna have to be stuck some more?" he cried, a look of
horror on his face.

"Lots more, I'm afraid," Buck.

Coop held out his arms, showing the doctor the myriad black and blue
spots where needles had penetrated. "I don't think I have any veins left
in my arms to get blood out of, Doc," he said.

Buck shrugged and winked at Jersey so Coop couldn't see. "Well, if
that's the case, we can always draw it from your femoral vein."

"My femoral vein? Where in the hell is that?" Coop asked, a look of
disbelief on his face.

181

Buck pointed at his groin. "Right there, next to your pubic bone."

Coop covered himself with both hands. "Oh, no, you don't. I'm sure you
can still find a small vein or two in my arms," he said, nodding his head.

"I hope so," Buck said, " 'cause a femoral stick is very painful."

"Shit," Coop said, putting his hand on his forehead. "I think I feel a
relapse comin' on, Doc. Maybe my antibodies aren't quite ready yet."

Buck laughed and said, "Get the hell out of here, Coop. I need to talk
to Jersey for a while. Tell the cook to fix you a couple of steaks. We
need to build your blood up for the upcoming tests."

"Yeah, I already feel like I'm a quart low," Coop said dejectedly as he
walked out of the room.

Jersey looked at Buck as he sat on the edge of her bed. "Any progress
with the cultures so far?" she asked.

He nodded. "It looks like the scientists took a regular strain of
anthrax and played with it until they got the mutation they wanted.
Normal respiratory anthrax is only caught by inhaling spores, and isn't
capable of being passed person to person. This strain, however, in
addition to being much more virulent, can evidently be caught from
anyone who is infected."

"That's right," Jersey said. "I was the only one who was in actual
contact with the liquid sample I took from the lab. Coop caught the bug
from me."

"That's what I feared," Buck said, a serious look on his face.

"But why didn't our previous vaccine work against this strain?" she asked.

"I think, actually, it did to a small degree," Buck said. "Otherwise you
would never have made it as long as you did without treatment."

"How long will it take the new vaccine to do its job?"

"In most cases, we need to vaccinate troops at least two

182

weeks before they're exposed, or the new vaccine won't have time to
build up the antibodies necessary for full protection."

"But what if the meres use it before we're ready?"

"What I plan to do is to give all of our troops shots of gamma globulin
now, to kick their immune systems into high gear while we're making the
new vaccine. That may buy us a little time until the vaccine takes
effect. And it should cut the response time down to one week instead of
two."

"I'm afraid that's still gonna be cutting it close," Jersey said. "The
meres were all ready to move out last week."

Buck nodded. "Yeah. We just heard from Ben on the radio that the attacks
have already begun in Mexico."

Jersey held out her arms. "Then take all the blood you need, Larry. We
need to get that vaccine ready as soon as possible."

"I'm already working on it, Jersey." He walked toward the door to her
cabin. "With any luck, we'll have the first vials of vaccine coming out
in less than a week, thanks to yours and Coop's blood."

General Bradley Stevens, Jr., walked into Claire's office and threw a
sheaf of papers onto her desk.

"What are those?" she asked.

"Reports from our radar installations. There was an unidentified plane
flying over our airspace last night."

"How high?"

"It never got below twenty thousand feet."

"You think it was a bomber?"

He shook his head. "No. If it had planned to drop bombs, it would have
dropped to ten thousand feet or less for a night drop."

She leaned back in her chair, her eyes narrowed. "Parachute troops?"

He shrugged. "I just don't know. If they were going to parachute troops
in, I'd think there would have been many more

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183

planes. And I don't see how they'd be able to drop troops from that
altitude."

"Where did the flight originate?" she asked, knowing somehow Ben Raines
had some dirty trick or another up his sleeve.

"Looks like it came from Louisiana, curved over the panhandle of Texas,
then straight up toward Iowa."

"Iowa? What the hell would they want with Iowa? You think maybe the
SUSA's short of corn or grain?" she asked with a sarcastic smile on her
face.

"No, but Iowa's one of the few places where we don't have a strong
military presence. It also happens to be the state with a populace more
sympathetic to Raines and his brand of government than most of our other
ones are."

"Well, General," she said, leaning forward to put her elbows on her
desk, "if Raines wants Iowa, he's welcome to it. As far as I can see,
the state is practically worthless."

"Except it produces almost a third of our foodstuffs, Madame President.
And I don't know if the people are going to put up with much more
rationing."

She slammed her hand down on the desk. "The people will do what I damn
well tell them to do, and don't you forget that for a moment, General
Stevens."

He clamped his jaw shut. He'd forgotten how resistant Claire was to
anything she didn't agree with. It was her worst failing as an
administrator. She continually surrounded herself with yes-men who
didn't dare to tell her the truth, unless it was favorable to her
beliefs. She reminded him of Adolf Hitler in a lot of ways, and, he
reminded himself, Hitler had managed to lose a war that he should have won.

"What would you like me to do about these reports?" he asked.

She thought for a moment, then said, "Send a platoon of troops from the
nearest base we have over there to check it out. Make sure they carry
some radios that can contact us with what they find. If Ben Raines is
trying something sneaky, I want to know about it."

184

"Yes, ma'am," Stevens said, saluting and leaving the room before he got
himself in further trouble by speaking his mind. That was one of the
worst sins you could commit in Claire's presence, speaking the truth.

When he got to his office, he called his aide and said, "Send a squad of
troops to Iowa, the Cedar Rapids area. Check 'em out a helicopter and
tell 'em to report any suspicious sightings or happenings in the area."

After he gave the order, he went back to his battle plans. Claire had
ordered him to step up the activity on the southern border with the
SUSA, and he needed to make sure it was done right.

185

Lieutenant Tommy Bell sat in the rear compartment of the Huey helicopter
with the rest of the eight men that had been sent to check out a radar
sighting over Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

He was plenty pissed off. The rest of his battalion was moving south to
confront Ben Raines's Rebel forces, and here he was playing nursemaid to
a squad of men doing police duties.

Damn, he thought, I'll never get promoted unless I get to see some
action. Both of his brothers, neither of which had graduated from
Officers' Candidate School with grades as high as his, were a full rank
ahead of him. Due mainly to their luck in being in the right place at
the right time and seeing heavy action in the last war.

As the Huey circled lower and lower over Cedar Rapids, Bell leaned out
the hatchway and took a close look at the town. Nothing seemed amiss.
People were moving about on the street; traffic, what little there was
of it due to stringent gasoline rationing, seemed to be moving normally;
and except for the roadblocks on the highway leading into town, all was
as it should be for a sleepy little farming town.

Bell grabbed the intercom mike and said, "Put her down in the town
square, there near the police station."

As the big, ungainly chopper settled to the ground on its skids, Bell
jumped from the hatch, his M-16 cradled in his arms, and jogged across
the grass-covered square toward the main police station. He intended to
ask the officer in charge

186

if anything strange had been reported the night before and to get him to
explain the purpose of the roadblocks.

Jim McAfee and Joey Rodriguez, his corporals, followed him toward the
station after telling the rest of the men to stand easy in the chopper.

The three soldiers entered the police station, their rifles at the ready
in case of trouble.

The ready room of the station was empty, except for a short Asian man
sitting behind the main desk with a sign on it that

said DESK SERGEANT.

"Can I help you gentlemen?" he asked, evidently not taking much notice
of their rifles.

"Who's in charge here?" Bell asked, looking around the room
suspiciously. There wasn't much action, but then it was early in the day
and a town this small probably didn't have a whole lot of crime anyway.

The desk sergeant wrinkled his forehead. "Why, that'd be the chief of
police, Jackie Malone," he answered.

"Would you get him down here?" Bell asked.

"Sure," the man answered, "only it's a her, not a him."

"What?" Bell asked.

"The chief is a lady," the desk sergeant answered with a smile as he
walked to a nearby door that had CHIEF OF POLICE written on it.

He knocked on the door, opened it, and stuck his head inside. "There are
a couple of gentlemen to see you, ma'am."

After a minute or so, a slim, attractive woman wearing a blue uniform
walked into the room from the office.

She and the desk sergeant stood in front of Bell and his corporals.
"What can I do for you?" she asked.

"We're here to see if anything out of the ordinary was reported last
night. We had a radar sighting over in Indianapolis of an unidentified
plane flying over this area."

Before she could answer, Jim McAfee cocked his M-16 and lowered the
barrel to point at the two police officers.

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187

"There's something fishy here, Tommy," he said, glaring at the two
people in front of him.

Bell glanced at Jim, thinking his corporal had gone crazy. "What's the
matter with you, Jim?"

McAfee pointed with his rifle. "Looky there. Their name badges are all
wrong."

Bell turned around to look. The name badge on the Asian man's pocket
said Myron Appbgate, while that on the female's chest read John Malcolm.

"Son of a . . ." Bell started tc say as he began to raise his rifle.

Tiger Tanaka exploded into action, his right leg moving almost faster
than the eye could see, swinging up and around, clipping Jim McAfee on
the chin and dropping him like a stone. Continuing his spin, Tiger
whirled around and with a spinning back-kick, caught John Rodriguez in
the stomach, doubling him over and to his knees.

Before Bell's rifle moved six inches, Jackie Malone stepped in and swung
a straight right jab into his chin, putting out his lights and knocking
him to the floor.

After handcuffs were applied all around, Jackie motioned with her head
toward the chopper outside, still s'tting on the square with its rotors
turning.

"Get them in here," she said. "We can use the Huey."

Tiger glanced at the name Bell on Tommy's left breast pocket, then
walked nonchalantly out the door toward the chopper.

When he was almost to it, he made a cutting motion across his neck to
the pilot and waited until the engine had been shut down.

He walked under the slowing blades without ducking-at his height he had
no need to-and called to the men. "Lieutenant Bell says for you men to
come into the station and get some donuts and coffee. He's gonna be a
while."

The men grinned and piled out of the Huey, a couple pausing to light
cigarettes.

188

"Follow me and I'll take you to your lieutenant," Tiger said,
suppressing a smile at the gullibility of the soldiers, who clearly were
expecting no trouble.

He stepped to the side as they entered the station, and picked up Bell's
M-16, which he'd left there.

Jackie Malone was standing behind the desk sergeant's desk, smiling
sweetly at the men as they gathered before her. None had their weapons
at the ready.

She pulled an Uzi from behind the desk and casually pointed it at the
soldiers. "I'm terribly sorry, gentlemen, but I'm afraid I'm going to
need your helicopter."

Two of the men at the rear made a motion to raise their rifles, until
Tiger, who was behind them, cocked his M-16 with a loud metallic click.

"Stand down, soldiers," he said in a gruff voice, pointing the rifle at
them.

They all dropped their weapons and raised their hands.

"If you men would be so kind as to strip down to your skivvies, I'm
going to need your uniforms too," Jackie said with a smile.

After the men were stripped down to undershorts and T-shirts, Tiger put
them all in the drunk tank, along with Bell, McAfee, and Rodriguez.

He walked back to the office Jackie was using. "Not a bad morning's
work," he said.

She agreed. "Now, we can use those uniforms and that chopper to make a
little trip to the Air National Guard base down the road. I'll bet they
still have a couple of choppers or airplanes we can use."

"I can't wait," Tiger said with a savage grin.

The Huey, piloted by one of Jackie Malone's men and containing fifteen
men, most of whom were dressed in Tommy Bell's squad's uniforms, came in
low out of the sun toward the landing field at the George W. Bush Air
National Guard

189

189

Base in Peoria, Illinois, a little over a hundred miles northwest of
Indianapolis.

The radio crackled to life. "Unidentified helicopter, this is the air
traffic control tower at Bush Air National Guard Base. Please identify
yourself," the scratchy voice commanded.

George Grant, pilot of the chopper, keyed his microphone. "Search and
rescue squad from Indianapolis under the command of Lieutenant Thomas
Bell," he said. "One of our men has been badly injured and we need to
land for immediate medical attention."

"We're at minimal status currently," the voice answered. "Most of our
troops have been sent south. Can't you make it to Indianapolis?"

"Negative," Grant said, putting some urgency in his voice. "Our man is
bleeding badly and we need to stabilize him before traveling further."

"Come in on Landing Field Z-22," the tower said. "We'll have our medic
standing by."

Grant grinned over his shoulder at Jackie Malone, who was standing in
the doorway behind him. She returned the smile and gave him a thumbs-up
sign.

Tanaka, who was lying on a stretcher in the cargo hold with ketchup and
bandages on his uniform, laid his head back and assumed an agonized
expression.

"Take it easy, Tiger," Jackie said. "You're not trying for an Oscar here."

He nodded as he slipped a .45 automatic under the bandages on his chest,
and feigned unconsciousness as the chopper settled to the tarmac near a
large hangar.

As Jackie and the other men jumped to the ground, an ambulance screeched
to a stop next to the Huey and a young man who looked to be no older
than eighteen rushed to the hatchway.

He motioned to two of Jackie's men, and they picked the stretcher up and
put it in the back of the ambulance.

190

Just before the medic climbed in, Jackie asked, "The tower said you were
at minimal staffing. What's going on?"

The medic glanced at her lieutenant's bars, then replied, "Most of the
troops and aircraft have been sent down to Oklahoma to fight the Rebs.
There ain't but a few of us left here."

"Exactly how many?" Jackie asked casually.

Sensing something was wrong, the medic jumped into the back of the
ambulance, only to be met with Tiger's .45 pointing at his face.

"The lady asked how many," Tiger said, a menacing scowl on his face.

The medic hung his head. " 'Bout six, I guess."

"Okay, that's better," Jackie said. "Now, where is your commanding
officer's office?"

Lieutenant Colonel Hadley Crow was sitting behind his desk when Jackie
and two of her men walked in without knocking.

Crow jumped to his feet. He was unarmed. "What's the meaning of this?"
he barked, as if he were still in command of the situation.

Jackie gave a casual shrug. "You've just been invaded, Colonel. We are
taking over your base."

"But . . . but . . . that's impossible!" Crow sputtered, looking around
as if he needed someone to explain further.

"No, it's not," Jackie said patiently. "Now, if you don't want your men
slaughtered unnecessarily, you'll get on the phone and have them
assemble here in your office."

"But what reason can I give them?" he asked.

"Tell them it's a surprise inspection."

"They'll never believe that."

"You'd better make them believe it, Colonel, or you'll have the deaths
of your entire command on your conscience," Jackie said in a voice that
showed she wasn't kidding.

191

191

The colonel slumped back into his chair and reached for the phone.

Within twenty minutes, he had seven airmen standing at attention in the
hangar below his office. Jackie accompanied him to stand before them.

"You men are all under house arrest," she said as her troops stepped out
from hiding and surrounded the men. "If you'll go with the colonel here,
I'm sure we can find room for all of you."

After the colonel and his men were led off, Tiger and Jackie walked
around the hangar, inspecting the planes that were there.

"Jesus," Tiger said, "here's an A-10 Warthog, one of the best of the old
ground-attack/strike fighters."

"Yeah, and over there's an F-lll Aardvark," Jackie said, "one of the
first fighter-bombers that could make low-level precision bombing
attacks by day or night."

Tiger glanced at her, grinning. "You know, with these and the Huey, we
could give President Osterman a real sleepless night."

Jackie nodded. "You've got a point there, Tiger. Let's go get on the
horn to Ben and see what he thinks of the idea."

192

Claire Osterman was furious. She grabbed an ashtray on her desk and
flung it against a far wall, narrowly missing General Bradley Stevens,
Jr., who ducked and then, realizing how silly it made him look, stood
back at attention.

"What the hell do you mean you haven't heard from the squad you sent out
yesterday?" she screamed, making even Herb Knoff, who was more or less
used to her tantrums, wince.

"As I said before, Madame President, we haven't been able to raise
Lieutenant Bell or the pilot on any of our frequencies since they flew
over Cedar Rapids, Iowa, yesterday."

"And just why not, General? Do you think they vanished into thin air?"

"No, ma'am. It could be anything from a radio malfunction to a simple
plane crash. They were flying in a fifty-year-old Huey helicopter and it
may have developed engine trouble . . . or something."

"I don't believe that for a moment, and I have a sneaking suspicion you
don't either, General," Claire said, calming down somewhat.

Stevens shook his head. "No, ma'am. If they had a radio malfunction,
they would have landed and checked in on a land-line, and if the chopper
had crashed, we would have had a report of it by now from the civilian
authorities."

"So, like me you think Ben Raines had something to do with this
disappearance of one of my helicopters?" she asked, glancing at Herb to
make sure he was paying attention.

193

193

"Either that, or possibly a group of our own rebels, supporters of Otis
Warner or General Winter," Stevens said, choosing his words very
carefully so as not to trigger another outburst from Claire.

"Son of a bitch!" she hollered again, slamming her hand down on her desk
so hard the phone jumped in the air. "First those bastards try and kill
me and take over the country. Then they set traitors on my soldiers and
kill them." She looked at the ceiling as if speaking directly to God
himself. "Will I never be quit of those assholes?" she asked rhetorically.

"What would you like me to do, Madame President? Send another squad to
check on the first?" Stevens asked diffidently.

She glared at him. "You're the fucking general, General, do whatever you
think best."

He nodded and turned to leave.

"But," Claire continued before he could reach the door, "if it were me,
I'd be very careful about sending more men and expensive equipment to
try and find men who are already undoubtedly dead. Otherwise, you may
end up sending yet another squad to check on the checkers." She paused,
a deadly look on her face. "Do you get my drift, General?"

"Yes, ma'am, I understand."

"After all," she said with a shrug, "even if rebel forces have captured
the helicopter, how much damage can a fifty-year-old machine do to us?"

Stevens was afraid to tell her just how awesome a fighting machine a
Huey with a fifty-caliber machine gun mounted in the hatchway could be,
even if it was fifty years old. If she hadn't seen films of the Vietnam
War or Desert Storm, who was he to risk his stars by reminding her?

Ben Raines threw back bis head and laughed out loud. "Jesus, Jackie, I
sent you up there to do a little guerrilla warfare and maybe recruit
some rebels. I didn't expect you to invade the U.S. and capture their
bases one by one."

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"Like they say, General Ben, never send a woman to do a man's job. She
may just surprise you with the results."

"You can say that again," Ben said, still laughing. "Now just what do
you have in mind to do next? Charge Indianapolis and make Sugar Babe
Osterman surrender?"

"Something like that," Jackie purred.

"What?" Ben asked, sitting up straight in his chair. "Now, Jackie," he
reasoned, "don't do anything foolish."

"Too late, Ben, I've already joined the Army."

Ben chuckled. Jackie was one of his best commanding generals. In spite
of her good looks and youthful appearance, she was known as Ironsides by
her troops. When given an objective, no matter how tough or impossible
it seemed, she drove her men, and herself, unmercifully until the goal
was accomplished. There was not one of her troops who wouldn't throw
himself on a grenade to save her life.

"Seriously, what are your plans?" Ben asked.

"Well, I thought you might give that bitch Osterman a call and demand
she draw her troops back from the border."

"And just why would she do that?" Ben asked, intrigued at the way
Jackie's mind worked.

"Because you might remind her that if she crosses us again, there is no
place on earth safe for her to hide in, and if we coordinate it just
right, at that exact moment my troops and I can hit her base with a few
bombs and rockets."

"You'll never hit her," Ben said. "From what our intel says, she's dug
in deep underground in fortified bunkers."

"That's not the point, Ben, darlin'," Jackie continued. "I'm not trying
to kill her, just to show her she can run but she can't hide. Can you
imagine the paranoia she's gonna feel when you tell her you can get her
and seconds later my attack bombers hit her base? I guarantee it'll
scare the shit out of her to be so vulnerable in her own home base."

Ben hesitated a moment while he thought it over. "That's a great idea,
Jackie, but do you think you can pull it off with

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minimal casualties? I'd love to put a scare into Sugar Babe, but not if
it means risking your life to do it."

"Sure, it'll be a piece of cake. From takeoff to strike, our time is
fifteen minutes. She won't have time to scramble an egg, much less her
defense fighters. I figure we can make two or three quick passes, then
get the hell out of there before they know what's hit them."

"And then?"

"We sweep around under their radar and land back here at the National
Guard base. They'll think we just disappeared in thin air."

Ben nodded, though Jackie couldn't see the gesture. "Good. Let's do it."

Claire Osterman's head was thrown back against the pillow and she had
her hands in Herb Knoff's hair. "Come on, baby, come on," she urged as
she bucked beneath him.

She almost screamed in frustration when the phone on her bedside table rang.

"Oh, goddamnit!" she growled, the mood broken. She pushed him off her,
ignoring the sweaty, pleading look on his face.

"This had better be damned important," she yelled into the phone,
breathing heavily and glancing at the clock. It was five minutes until
midnight.

Her secretary said, "I hate to interrupt you, Madame President. . . ."

"Not as much as / hate it, Gladys," she growled. "What is it?"

"I have a man on the phone who says he is General Ben Raines."

"Ben Raines?" Claire asked incredulously.

"Yes, ma'am. Shall I tell him to call back at a more appropriate hour?"

"Of course not, you fool! Put him through."

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"Yes, ma'am."

There was a series of clicking, buzzing noises, and then the voice of
the man Claire hated above all others was on the line, speaking as if he
were a long-lost friend.

"Hello, Sugar Babe," he said.

"Don't call me that, you bastard! What do you want?" she asked heatedly.

"I thought I might prevail upon you to move your troops back from our
borders and prevent you from making another terrible mistake."

"My troops are just undergoing training exercises on our own territory,
Ben," she said, trying to calm herself.

"Yeah, sure, Sugar Babe. But I would like you to try and remember what
happened the last couple of times you tried to cause trouble between our
countries. You got your ass kicked but good," he added.

"Listen, you arrogant son of a bitch," she yelled into the phone. "It's
you that's going to get his ass kicked this time, and that's a promise."

"Modern warfare is such a bitch, Claire," he said reasonably, as if he
hadn't heard her. "In the old days, leaders could sit behind their desks
thousands of miles from the front and send young men and women into
combat with nary a risk to their own life and limb."

"So what?" she asked, puzzled at what he was trying to tell her.

"Well, those days are gone forever. Now, if a leader decides to cause a
war, that leader must be shown that there is no safe place for those who
cause the needless death of others."

"What are you saying, Ben?" she asked, sitting up straight in bed and
shoving the covers aside. "Are you trying to threaten me?"

"Not trying, sweetie, I'm promising you that if you continue with this
ill-advised course of action, it will be you who pays the ultimate
price, not just your troops."

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"Listen, you son of a bitch, I'm not in the least afraid of you or what
you think you can do," she shouted.

"You should be, Claire, you should be very afraid. Look out your window,
if you think I'm blowing smoke," Ben said, and then he hung up, the
click loud in Claire's ear.

She slammed the phone down, shaking from anger. She looked at Herb,
lying next to her, a puzzled look on his face, trying to understand what
had just been said.

She lay back on her pillows and stretched her hand out to rub the hair
on his chest. "Now, where were we, darling?"

As Herb grinned and rolled over to snuggle up against her, the entire
room shook from an explosion that must have been directly overhead.

Plaster fell from the ceiling and sprinkled down on the bed as if it
were snowing inside the room, while another deep booming vibrated the
bed, knocking her phone off the bedside table and breaking the lamp.

"Shit!" she hollered, and scrambled from the bed, grabbing a nightgown
from the chair and running to her door.

General Bradley Stevens, whose room was just down the hall of the
underground bunker, appeared in the hallway, his hair tousled as if he'd
just woken up.

"What the hell . . ." he said, looking around him in disbelief as pieces
of the walls disintegrated and began to tumble to the floor.

"Get on the phone and find out what the hell is happening!" Claire
screamed at him, forgetting her nightgown was unfastened and her breasts
exposed.

Stevens glanced at her, then quickly turned away as he hurried down the
hall to the guard's desk at the end of the corridor.

He grabbed the phone and dialed a series of numbers, having to yell into
the phone to make himself heard over the rat-a-tat of heavy machine-gun
fire coming from above.

After a second, he yelled at her, "Get back in your room and lock your
door . . . we're under attack!"

He threw the phone down and ran up the stairs to the first

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floor, and burst out the fortified steel door onto the grass outside the
building.

He ducked as what looked like a Warthog dived directly at him, spraying
the ground with 30mm cannon fire, which danced a trail of death four
feet to his left and shattered the walls next to him. Though the walls
were made of three feet of reinforced concrete over stainless steel, the
armor-piercing shells tipped with depleted uranium went though them like
grain through a goose.

Stevens dove to the ground and covered his head with his hands. He
peeked out from under his arms to look at the nearest hangar, where
several men were trying to get fighter planes launched.

He was just in time to see an F-lll Aardvark follow the Warthog in a
steep dive at over six hundred miles an hour. As the Aardvark pulled up,
twin rockets loosed themselves from its wings and arrowed down at the
fighter planes, still on the ground.

The missiles exploded, blowing both planes and a dozen men into tiny
bits, and sent a fireball three hundred feet into the air.

Stevens rolled to the side and caught sight of an ancient Huey
helicopter hovering near a distant hangar, pouring fifty-caliber rounds
into the motor pool vehicles. A HumVee, with the general's flag on its
fenders, exploded and jumped into the air as if it'd been kicked. The
fireball from the HumVee incinerated six men nearby and set three other
vehicles on fire.

Stevens laid his head on his arms, wishing Claire Osterman could witness
the damage a fifty-year-old machine could do.

Two minutes later, the attackers were gone, as if they'd never existed,
leaving behind them a base in utter ruins. Buildings were shattered and
caved in, planes and wreckage were burning, sirens wailing, men
screaming and groaning in pain, and all was mass confusion.

Stevens jumped to his feet and began to run across the tar-

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mac, yelling at soldiers to get some planes airborne to chase the
bastards who'd done this to his base.

It took another fifteen minutes to scramble anything, as burning
wreckage had to be moved and fires put out before other planes could be
fueled.

By the time they were in the air, Stevens was in the control tower,
bending over a radarscope, yelling at the airman there to find out where
the attackers had gone.

The young man glanced up, fear in his face. "I don't know, sir. They
came in under the radar and left the same way. Nothing ever showed up on
my scope at all."

"That's impossible!" Stevens screamed, already wondering how he was ever
going to explain this to Osterman.

"What do I tell the pursuit planes, General?" the tower con-trolman
asked, holding a mike in his hand.

"Tell 'em they'd better damned well find something to shoot at or not to
bother coming back!" he yelled, making the man cringe back as if he were
about to be hit.

He bent over his mike. "Tower to Eagle One, Two, and Three, quarter the
skies and search for bogeys. Repeat, search for bogeys until you find
something," he repeated, looking over his shoulder at Stevens.

200

Bruno Bottger stood on the prow of the first of three large transport
ships as they sailed into the harbor at Pariso. In the ships with him
were twenty thousand battle-hardened mercenaries along with various and
sundry equipment they would need on the campaign to take first Mexico
City, then to invade and eventually conquer the SUSA and Ben Raines's
Rebel forces.

Perro Loco, Paco Valdez, and Jim Strunk were on the dock to welcome him.

"Look at him, riding the front of the ship like some conquering hero,"
Valdez sneered to Loco. "I think he is one we're going to have to watch
very carefully, comandante," he said.

"I agree, sir," Strunk added. "He is used to commanding, and I do not
believe he will take kindly to playing second fiddle to anyone."

Loco dismissed their warnings with a wave of his hand. "Do not worry. I
am not underestimating the difficulty of sharing a command with such a
person." He grinned as the gangplank of Bottger's ship was lowered to
the dock. "As the old saying goes, 'when you grab a tiger by the tail,
it is most important not to let go, lest you be eaten.' "

"So, you plan to 'share' command with this German bigot?" Valdez asked.

"I think it would be wise to let him think so," Loco said. "I will do as
General Eisenhower did in the Second World War with the British General
Montgomery, who was at least

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as big an egomaniac as this Bottger is reputed to be. I will give him
command of his troops on the western borders of Mexico, at least until
we reach and take Mexico City." He shrugged. "After that, it may well be
time to see if an unfortunate accident cannot be arranged for Herr Bottger."

Strunk grinned, his fingers caressing the hilt of his commando knife in
its scabbard on his belt. "I can hardly wait, comandante."

Bottger strolled up the dock, looking around as if he owned the world,
followed closely by his second in command, Sergei Bergman, who was
talking earnestly in his ear.

At the end of the pier, Loco approached him.

Bottger gave a quick nod of his head and stuck out his hand. "It is a
pleasure to finally meet you face-to-face, Sefior Loco."

"Likewise, Herr Bottger," Loco said, smiling widely and taking the hand.

Loco had to fight the urge to stare at the mass of scar tissue that
covered Bottger's face and head. It was as if the man were wearing a
rubber mask that hardly moved as he spoke, the tissue slick and shiny in
the Mexican sun.

Bottger, who was used to such a reaction, briefly fingered the scars. "I
see you have noticed the gift Ben Raines gave me on our last encounter.
As you might well imagine, I have much to repay him for."

Loco cleared his throat and forced his eyes away from the horror that
was Bottger's face. "Come, Herr Bottger. I have a meal ready for us at
my headquarters, and have prepared a suite of rooms that you may use to
freshen up from your sea voyage."

"Thank you. That would be appreciated."

Later, in the dining room of the officers' quarters Loco used as his
command center, they feasted on the finest Mexican

202

cuisine. Loco had searched for and found several cases of German wine
that he'd heard Bottger preferred.

Bottger kept the talk general and light until the meal was finished and
they'd repaired to Loco's office for brandy and cigars.

As Bottger inhaled deeply of the Cohiba Especiale and sipped the
Napoleon brandy, his eyes never left Loco's.

"Tell me, Loco, how do you envision the separation of duties of our
collaboration to proceed?"

Loco smiled and leaned forward in his leather armchair. "I think the
most efficient way for us to divide the duties is for you to command
your mercenaries and for me to command my troops. That way there is no
overlap of responsibilities."

"And the deployment of the soldiers will be under whose orders?"

Loco leaned back, waving his cigar in the air to dispel some of the
smoke that was rapidly filling the air in the room with a blue cloud.

"Since I have some experience with the situation here in Mexico, I would
hope that you would not mind some suggestions from me and my staff as to
the most efficient way to maximize the troops under your command." He
hesitated. "In other words, we will discuss the situations as they
change day to day, and come to an agreement about the disposition of the
various men and materiel under our joint command."

Bottger leaned his head back and gave a hearty laugh. "A very diplomatic
way to put it, Loco," he said, grinning.

Loco returned the smile. "Of course, with both of us being very
experienced in conducting warfare, I would hope that we will agree on
what needs to be done the majority of the time."

Bottger nodded. "I can see that this will be an entertaining experience,
having someone of your caliber to exchange ideas with." He glanced at
Sergei Bergman. "My aide, Sergei, tells me you've already given him the
authority to run his campaign along the western border, in the
mountainous region along the coast."

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203

"That's correct. Since his troops were much more experienced in
guerrilla-type warfare, I thought they would do best in the less
populated areas, while my more conventional troops could best serve by
moving up the center of the country where most of the Mexican Army is
concentrated."

Bottger took another drag of his cigar. "Very wise, Loco. I would have
done the same thing in your place."

Loco raised his brandy snifter. "Then we are in agreement on how to
proceed?"

Bottger mimicked his toast. "Certainly, Loco. After all, we both want
the same thing, do we not? The complete and utter destruction of Ben
Raines and his accursed SUSA."

The ship carrying Harley Reno's team pulled into the harbor at New
Orleans. The members boarded a waiting Osprey and were flown to Base
Camp One, where Ben Raines was waiting to meet them.

Jersey and Coop were taken to the state-of-the-art medical lab
facilities by Dr. Buck, while Harley and Hammer and the others met with
Ben in his office.

"Then I take it Jersey and Coop are completely out of danger?" Ben asked.

"Yes, sir," Harley replied. "Dr. Buck says they're both gonna have to
take it easy for a while, especially Jersey, but that they shouldn't
have any permanent disability from the infection."

"Good," Ben said. "Dr. Buck informs me this bug is a mutated form of the
type used by Bruno Bottger several years ago here and in Africa."

"That's what he believes."

Ben shook his head. "Then I guess there's little doubt that it's Bottger
who's behind the meres in South America."

Harley nodded. "It certainly fits with the evidence."

"It seems Claire Osterman has made a bargain with not one, but two
devils, Perro Loco and Bruno Bottger."

204

"They're gonna be a tough team to beat, especially if they establish a
strong foothold in Mexico City," Hammer said.

"I don't see any way to prevent that," Ben said, "short of our
precipitating an international incident by invading Mexico ourselves."

"Then the Mexican president is still refusing to accept our help?"
Harley asked.

"Yes. The idiot thinks his troops can hold off both Loco's army and
Bottger's mercenaries."

"He's a fool then," Hammer said.

"Yeah, it looks like the Americans in the U.S. aren't the only ones to
elect an imbecile for a leader."

"If you can call Mexican elections the voice of the people, as corrupt
as they are," Anna said.

"Well, that's neither here nor there. We've got problems of our own.
Osterman's troops are pushing us along all of our northern borders, so
we're going to have plenty to do just to keep the wolves from our own
doors without worrying too much about saving Mexico's bacon."

"What can we do?" Harley asked.

"I've divided our battalions up among the various states of the SUSA;
Texas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama,
Georgia, Virginia, and North and South Carolina. In addition, I've sent
Jackie Malone with a squad of the best of our scouts to parachute in and
harass Osterman at every opportunity in her own backyard."

Harley glanced at Hammer and smiled. They'd both served under Jackie in
the past, and had the utmost respect for her abilities to cause problems
for those she opposed. "I'll bet Osterman is shitting bricks," Harley said.

Ben laughed. "I suppose so. Jackie took over an Air National Guard base
in Peoria and attacked Sugar Babe's home base last night, inflicting
fairly severe damage."

"You go, girl," Beth whispered, a wide grin on her face.

"I've already heard that Osterman had the gall to complain

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about an unwarranted attack by our forces to the United Nations this
morning."

"She's got some balls," Harley said, reluctant admiration in his voice.

"And then some," Ben agreed. "Jean-Francois Chapelle, Secretary General
of the UN., called Cecil Jeffreys and asked him what was going on."

"What'd Cec tell him?" Anna asked.

"Cec said he had no idea who had attacked Osterman, but that it might
have been dissidents in her own Army, since the planes involved were hers."

"Did Chapelle buy that cock-and-bull story?" Hammer asked.

"Not for a minute, but he couldn't do much since Claire had no proof we
were involved. And when Cec asked him to look into the provocative troop
movements of Osterman's, he said he'd take it under advisement."

"So, as usual, the U.N. is useless as teats on a boar hog?" Harley asked.

"Right," Ben answered. "They won't get involved unless some Third World
country goes crying to them, which isn't going to happen any time soon.
The U.N. looks upon this as just another squabble to stay out of,
letting us settle it between ourselves."

"You know, Ben, they might act differently if we tell them about this
plague Bottger is going to try and unleash on the world. If it gets out
of hand, it may affect many more nations that just ours," Anna said.

"That's a thought," Ben said. "I'll pass it along to Cec and let him run
with it, though I doubt it'll do any good. The U.N. is so used to
burying its head in the sand, I don't think anything will convince them
to take a stand, until it's all over."

"And what about us?" Harley asked.

"I want you to rest up for a few days, get a little R and R, and be
ready to ship out next week."

"Where to?" Hammer asked.

206

"I thought a little trip down Mexico way might be good for you, since
you're already acclimated to the climate by your stay in South America."

"Mexico? But I thought the president didn't want us down there," Harley
said.

"He doesn't, but what he doesn't know won't hurt him, will it?" Ben said
with a grin.

207

Comandante Perro Loco was sitting at his breakfast table, remembering
the beginnings of the war for Mexico, when Ben Raines had interfered and
dashed his hopes for a quick, decisive victory just a few months ago, as
he studied old field reports from his spies and commanders north of the
Mexican border.

Field Marshal Bruno Bottger walked in, followed by his second in
command, Sergei Bergman.

"Good morning, comandante," Bottger said, evidently in a better mood
this morning after a full night's sleep.

"Buenos dias, Field Marshal," Loco replied, straightening the papers on
the table next to his plate of scrambled eggs covered with hot sauce.

Bottger and Bergman took their seats and gave orders to the Mexican
waiter to bring them whatever the comandante was having, along with a
pot of coffee.

Then Bottger spied the papers in front of Loco. "What are you reading,
Loco? Field reports?" he asked.

Loco shook his head. "No, I am just reviewing what information I have
about Ben Raines and his form of government. I believe, like Cicero of
the Roman Republic, to win at war, one must first know one's enemies as
well as one's allies."

Bottger smiled, nodding. "What have you found out about Raines?"

"I have just been reading from transcripts given to one of my spies by a
newspaper reporter from New York." He passed

208

the paper across the table to Bottger, who began to read it. The report
by Robert Barnes, war correspondent for the United Press, read as follows:

"As North America began to slowly pull itself out of the greatest
economic and social collapse in world history, Ben Raines found himself
to be the most hated man in all of America. That really didn't come as
any surprise to Ben, for right after the collapse, Ben had gathered
together a small group called the Rebels-a mixture of
po-litical/militia/survivalist-oriented men and women-and told them,
'We're going to rebuild. Against all odds, we're going to carve out our
own nation. And we're going to be hated for our success.'

"As it turned out, hate was not nearly a strong enough word. Ben and his
Rebels first went to the Northwest and settled what would be forever
known as the Tri-States, with the Tri-States form of government. The
philosophy was based on personal responsibility and common sense. It
soon became a hated form of government for those living outside the
Tri-States, for liberals and other left-wingers don't want to be
responsible for anything they do and they don't appear to possess any
common sense.

" 'Of course, that isn't entirely true,' Ben once said in one of his
rarely granted interviews with the press. 'But that's the way it seems
to those of us who believe that government should stay out of the lives
of its citizens as much as possible.'

"In the Tri-States, if you got careless and stuck yourself in the face
with the business end of a screwdriver, you didn't sue the manufacturer
of the screwdriver for damages . . . you learned to be more careful in
handling tools.

"Common sense.

"Ben Raines realized that not everyone could, or would, live under a
system of law that leaned heavily on common sense and personal
responsibility. From the outset he es-

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timated, correctly, as it turned out, that no more than two or three out
of every ten Americans could live under a Tri-States form of government.
People who came to live in the old Tri-States did not expect something
for nothing ... and that was wise on their part, for they damn sure
weren't going to get something for nothing.

"In the Tri-States, everybody who was able worked at something. No
able-bodied person sat on their ass and expected free handouts from the
taxpayers . . . that just wasn't going to happen. You might not like the
job that would be found for you, and it would be found very quickly, but
you worked it, or you got out.

"Criminals discovered almost immediately that in the Tri-States, they
had very few rights. All the rights belonged to the law-abiding
citizens. If a criminal got hurt during the commission of a crime, he or
she could not sue for damages. If they got killed, their family could
not sue for damages. And in the Tri-States, a lot of criminals got
killed during the first years. The Tri-States was not a friendly place
for criminals . . . and it didn't take criminals long to discover that.
The residents of the Tri-States didn't have a problem with drugs; the
penalty for selling hard drugs was death; when caught, and after a very
brief trial, the criminals had a choice, hanging or firing squad.
Consequently, very soon drug dealing in the Tri-States dropped off to zero.

"Life was so good in the Tri-States, the central government, once it got
back on its feet after only a few years, couldn't stand it and moved
against the Tri-Staters. It was a terrible battle, but in the end the
old Tri-States, located in the Northwest, was destroyed.

"But Ben Raines and his dream lived, and Ben gathered together the
survivors of the government assault, and declared war on the government
... a dirty, nasty, hit-and-destroy-and-run type of guerrilla warfare.

"Eventually, the entire United States collapsed inward

210

and Ben and his Rebels, now hundreds and hundreds strong, were able to
move into the South and set up a new government. This time it was called
the SUSA: the Southern United States of America.

"It was a struggle for a few years, and one time the SUSA was overrun by
rabble from outside its borders. But the Rebels beat the attackers back
and rebuilt their nation, larger and stronger and more self-sufficient
than ever before.

"The Rebels are now the largest and most powerful and feared fighting
force in the free world, so much so that the Secretary General of the
newly reorganized United Nations met with Ben Raines and made a bargain
with him: You deal with a few trouble spots around the world, especially
with Bruno Bottger and his band of Nazis, and we'll recognize the SUSA
as a free and sovereign nation.

"The two men shook hands, sealing the deal, and Ben took his Rebels and
sailed off to Africa."

As Bottger put the paper down, Loco said, "The report ended just as
Raines was heading off to fight you, Field Marshal, in Africa, some
years ago."

Bottger pursed his lips, a wry expression on his face. He glanced at
Bergman, who was scowling.

"We remember the time very well, comandante," Bottger said in a low
voice, as if he didn't appreciate being reminded of his defeat at the
hands of Raines.

Loco pushed a journal-type document across the table. "This is a
journal, written by one of Raines's team that accompanied him throughout
that campaign," Loco said. "It too gives fresh insight into the way
Raines's mind works, and speaks directly toward his motivation in trying
to save the world from men such as he believes we are."

Bottger thumbed through the journal, reading as he sipped his coffee.

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211

"Ben poured a fresh hot mug of coffee from the thermos and shook his
head and sighed, remembering all too vividly the bad days in America,
before the collapse, before the terrible germ war that wiped out every
government around the globe, even before the nationwide taxpayer revolt
that cost hundreds of Americans their lives as hardworking and
hard-pressed-by-the-government citizens protested the amount of money
extorted from them every year by the government . . . and in many cases,
at least in the minds of many, the money carelessly pissed away by Congress.

"Ben sat in his tent and sipped his coffee, recalling the smooth and
highly effective actions of the insidious gun-grab folks at work, until
they finally got their way and all handguns (except those in the hands
of selected citizens-the suck-ass types) were seized by federal agents
and carefully handpicked and trained members of the military.

"Ben recalled even before then, when morally the nation was sliding down
into the gutter.

" 'Morally we were bankrupt,' Ben muttered, after taking another sip of
coffee. 'Many Americans were happy and content to be playing among the
turds and the puke in the sewers.'

"And Ben knew the nation was definitely morally bankrupt in the years
before the Great War and the collapse. There was filth and perversion
every day on the television and in the movies. The same garbage, and in
many cases, much worse, could be found in cyberspace, on the information
highway called the Internet.

"Liberals and many members of the press screamed that it was freedom of
speech and to interfere would be a violation of the Bill of Rights.

"But Ben had grave doubts about that.

"A few years before the entire world fell apart there had been a rash of
schoolyard killings: kids killing kids

212

for no apparent reason. The hysterical gun-grabbers howled that it was
the availability of guns that caused the kids to kill. But Ben and
millions of others who applied common sense to everyday living know that
was pure horseshit: nothing but mealymouthed, out-of-touch-with-reality
liberals making excuses for deviant and otherwise totally unacceptable
behavior.

"Ben stirred restlessly in his camp chair as old memories came flooding
back with startling clarity, vivid images of him, years back, sitting in
the den of his home trying to watch television, but instead seething
with anger at the TV news commentators and movie and TV personalities
(all of them so left-leaning and liberal it pained them to have to give
a right-hand turn signal), excusing the behavior of dope dealers,
violent criminals, gang members, and degenerates . . . and especially
saying the Bible was passe.

"Ben had listened to those types espouse their views that the Bible
didn't really have to be followed . . . not down to the letter. If a
certain passage of Scriptures didn't please the reader, well, just
ignore it and go on to another passage that better suited the reader's
lifestyle.

"Ben had always wondered, often, as he recalled, what the Almighty
thought about that.

"Ben was not an overly religious man, but he certainly believed in God
and he did read the Bible: He carried a Bible with him in the wagon and
read it often, taking a great deal of comfort in the words.

"He recalled a radio interview he'd done with a talk show host one time,
just a few months before the Great War and the collapse. The interviewer
was one of those who believed that only the police and the military
should own guns, and no civilian should be allowed to carry a concealed
weapon . . . except for certain selected individuals, that is; but he
would never say who those selected people might be. But Ben knew: people
who gave lots of

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money to the whiny, I-want-to-run-your-life and the
give-me-something-for-nothing parties. The interviewer placed the blame
for many of society's ills solely on guns . . . but never, ever on the
person holding the gun.

"Ben had finally lost his temper with the left-winger and the interview
turned decidedly nasty. The ratings for that show were the highest ever
known.

"Ben smiled as he recalled that long-ago TV show. That had been a fun
interview! He had succeeded in making the left-wing liberal prick angry
and the man had lost his cool. Ben had been good at doing that.

"Ben's smile faded. Now the city where the station had been located no
longer existed, except in the ashes of memory. Those wonderful people
the interviewer had so staunchly defended had turned the streets into a
battleground, as punk gangs fought for control . . . until the Rebels
came along and killed them."

Bottger sneered as he put the journal down. "This is bullshit, written
by a woman obviously infatuated with General Raines. No one in a
position of power is that naive, that altruistic," Bottger said.

Loco shrugged. "I would not be too sure, Field Marshal. I, for one,
believe Ben Raines is just as he's reported to be, a fanatic about
self-reliance and loyalty. Just read what the journal says about his
relationship with the president of the SUSA."

Bottger picked the journal back up and read:

"Cecil Jeffreys was the president of the SUSA, the first black man
elected to such a high office in America . . . and it took the
separation of the nation and the men and women of the South to
accomplish it.

"Cecil and Ben had been friends for many years. Cecil had left the
grueling life in the field to enter politics after a heart attack nearly
killed him during a campaign."

214

Loco pointed at the transcript of the expedition written by Robert
Barnes, war correspondent, Associated Press, and the journal written by
an unnamed member of his team. "Ben Raines is part madman," Loco said,
"as you can see by his antiquated beliefs in the importance of the
individual, and I believe that makes him a far more formidable adversary
than we have believed. I think part of his success against both of us
has been that fact, that we've underestimated him, thought him to be
more like us, when in fact he is just the opposite."

Bottger put down the lengthy article. "Ben Raines and his men are very
tough," he said, "and they are apparently completely unafraid of us and
our armies, a fact we must take into consideration. We can only hope
that Raines's battles with the forces of the USA will weaken him and
divide his attention from us long enough for us to prevail here in Mexico."

"It is a gamble worth taking, Field Marshal," Loco said, leaning across
the table to make his point. "After all, for a chance to control all of
the American continent, what difference would it make if we lose a few
thousand men? Fighting men and equipment are expendable and easily
replaceable. Central and South America are full of men who are willing
to risk their lives for the promise of money."

Bottger grinned and raised his cup of coffee. "For which we both should
be eternally grateful."

215

Captain Dimitri Zubov was deeply concerned. Worried was a better word
for the way he felt. In all his years as a hired mercenary since leaving
the former Soviet Union, he'd never encountered anything quite like
this. His men were spread out across muggy, jungle-thick hills in a
Mexican state known as Oxaca.

They'd been dropped off at the port town of Salina Cruz by freighter and
told to move northward and kill everyone and destroy any villages they
came upon. They'd been promised that the Mexican Army was weak and
poorly represented in this state and that they'd face little opposition
except from poorly armed Indians and half-breeds.

However, a seek-and-destroy mission in this terrain was about as tough
as it could get. Captain Zubov lead a force of ex-Blackshirts, the
special assassination troops trained in guerrilla warfare by the elite
USA Subversive Corps. Black-shirts, as they were called, were only sent
into a war zone for highly specialized assignments. Most of these men
had left the U.S. when Claire Osterman had been forced from power last
year, and had joined up with mercenary forces. Zubov commanded one of
these units, made up of mercenaries from around the world.

General Herman Bundt had directed him to search for a Mexican Army unit
made up of special troops reported to be in these hills. And yet no sign
of them had turned up anywhere . . . not so much as a single footprint.
A bombing run

216

by the helicopters assigned to his unit had used their antitank missiles
to wipe out most of the citizenry of this region, leaving only a few
farm animals and wild creatures roaming the mountainous jungle region.

He spoke to his sergeant, Sergi Rikov, another highly skilled Soviet
guerrilla fighter, whispering to him in the fog of an early spring
morning in southern Mexico.

"Nothing. We were given bad information by General Bundt about these
Mexican troops. They are not here. Otherwise, we would have found
something. . . ."

"Why would anyone fight to hold this useless territory?" Sergeant Rikov
asked. "What strategic value could it possibly have?"

"Who knows? I'm beginning to wonder about the competence of leadership
under this man whom we never see. No one seems to know what they are doing."

Zubov glanced up at cloudy skies. A silence blanketed the valley below
them. "No airplanes. No rockets. Not a shot has been fired."

"It may be too quiet," Rikov warned. "Remember what Leonid said about
silence when we went through our training in Mongolia. Silence can be a
deadly thing ... a warning. I have never been in a place as quiet as
this. It is far too quiet to suit me."

"Nor have I seen a place so quiet," Zubov agreed, sweeping the
pine-studded valley with field glasses.

"If these Mexican troops intend to challenge us over this place, they
would surely send up aircraft in order to have our position," said
Rikov. "Even the quietest surveillance airplane flying at high altitude
makes some noise." He glanced at his superior lying next to him. "Or
perhaps the presence of our attack helicopters scared them off."

"They may not be able to get a fix on us," Zubov said. "We don't know
how well equipped this General Guerra and his armies are. We have ten
rocket launchers, and only thirty men for them to find. If these Mexican
soldiers are here, we

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will certainly have them overpowered by weaponry . . . and skilled
guerrilla fighters."

"At the very least, we have good men," Rikov said with a glance behind
him. "Our Soviet and Yugoslav assault teams are the best in the world. I
have absolutely no doubt about it. All we have to do is find the enemy."

Zubov let out a sigh. "What good will it do us, or this cause championed
by General Bundt and Field Marshal Bottger, if they have sent us to the
wrong place? There are times, like now, when I question the value of
their intelligence reports on enemy activities."

"General Bundt sounded so sure. A unit of the Mexicans' crack assault
troops was coming south by way of this old road, to launch an attack on
Salina Cruz to try and take back the port so we couldn't use it for
reinforcements. No one had any doubts, according to the general."

"I have my doubts now," Zubov said. "This is nothing but jungle and
empty villages, a few wandering cows and some pigs beyond that hilltop.
There are no enemy soldiers here. We have wasted our time in difficult
terrain based on inaccurate information. No one, not even a civilian, is
here now."

"We were ordered to wait."

Zubov scowled. "Yes. To wait for the enemy. But as you can see, there is
no enemy, unless we intend to wage war against pigs and cows." ;

"According to General Bundt, we will be paid no matter what we find."

"I'm beginning to wonder," Zubov added, turning the focus knob on his
field glasses. "I hear rumors that Bottger and Perro Loco are going
broke . . . that they have very little money left after the disastrous
defeat last year at the hands of Ben Raines's Rebels. Most of their
attempts to take Africa and Mexico failed miserably, which only makes me
wonder more about their leadership. And now I hear they are broke."

"I have heard the same thing," Rikov said. "If this is indeed

218

true, we will be forced to take our money from them at gunpoint."

"I was told the Central Americans have not been paid in silver or gold.
They were given paper currency that is worthless. None of the stores in
any of the towns in the USA will take this paper money."

"Until Field Marshal Bottger breaks a promise to us, we have no choice
but to follow his orders. If anything he has told us is not true,
including the amount and type of money we will be paid, then I will kill
him personally."

Rikov suddenly looked away. "I heard a noise, Captain."

Zubov jerked around. "What kind of noise?" he whispered when all seemed
quiet at the front, to the north of their present position.

"A cry . . . like the crying of a small child, but very soft and far away."

"Who the hell would be crying in this wilderness? There are no children
here. We haven't seen anyone since we crossed that ridge miles behind us."

"It may be nothing," Rikov said, although he continued to keep an eye on
a hilltop roughly half a mile away. "I could have imagined it, I suppose."

Zubov went back to his field glasses, sweeping the jungle again.
"Nothing," he hissed, clenching his teeth. "But I have the distinct
feeling that something is wrong."

"Look!" Rikov exclaimed, pointing to a grassy slope to the north. "It is
Yarimere! What is he doing out in the open like that?"

Zubov turned his binoculars on the slope. Yarimere Hecht, an old friend
from Russia, was staggering down the hill, stumbling and almost falling.
And now Zubov heard the crying sounds too, for they were distinct in the
silence surrounding them.

"What the hell is wrong with him?" Rikov wanted to know, focusing his
field glasses on a man in a black shirt and black

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beret stumbling toward them, dark stains on his clothes and an agonized
expression on his face.

Zubov sighed, reaching for his AK-47 automatic rifle. "He is badly
wounded, comrade. Someone has shot him several times in the chest and
belly."

Rikov tensed, reaching down for his own automatic rifle. "Then they are
here," he whispered.

The sudden staccato of automatic-weapons fire thundered from the jungle
hills south of them. Yarimere Hecht went down in a heap as if he'd been
struck over the head by a heavy hammer, blood squirting from a number of
wounds across his back and sides, his head coming apart in a spray of
blood and bone and tufts of his long black hair.

"Son of a bitch!" Zubov hissed, looking for the source of the bullets.
"How the hell did they get behind us?"

"It is not possible," Sergeant Rikov said as more and more gunfire
erupted from trees to the south and west of their position.

The endless blasts of large-bore guns echoed across the Ox-acan jungle.
Men in black vests and berets tumbled out of pine thickets, shooting at
unseen targets to their rear before they were gunned down.

"They have us cornered," Zubov exclaimed. "We have no choice but to head
north, and that is all very thick jungle country."

"To hell with this," Rikov shouted as the gunshots came closer, lead
slugs whistling through the air above their heads now.

He came to a crouch and took off at a run, keeping low to make as small
a target as possible.

Captain Zubov had cupped his hands around his mouth to warn his sergeant
against such a retreat, when he felt the earth shudder beneath him.

Sergeant Rikov stepped on a land mine less than thirty yards downslope.
He was blown skyward, arms windmilling, his AK-47 flying into the air
only fractions of a second before his legs

220

were severed from his body. Pulpy bits of bone and flesh swirled away
from his torso, and as he met his appointment with death, he let out a
bloodcurdling scream.

Zubov did not watch his sergeant land in pieces around a deep crater
where the land mine had been planted. All he could think of now was
making it out of this place with his skin intact.

Men were screaming across vine-choked ridges behind him, and he had
proof the land south of his position had been mined ... his trusted
sergeant's body decorated the dark green grass running into the valley
below him.

"How the hell did they slip up behind us without any of my men knowing
about it?" he wondered aloud, inching backward until he was protected
from flying bullets by a ledge of rock jutting from the hill.

It was not possible, and yet the shrill cries of wounded and dying men
made it all too clear his squad was in deep trouble in the pines.

Zubov saw two of his men break from a stand of trees at a dead run,
spraying automatic-weapons fire in their wake as they ran toward safety.

A mortar thudded somewhere on a hillock west of the valley, and then an
earsplitting explosion blew his Blackshirt squad men away, leaving
nothing but flying dirt and vines and clods of grass where they had been
only moments before the blast.

To hell with this, he thought, bending low to make a run to the east
where no guns riddled the slopes. He dashed across the low side of the
ridge with his AK-47 cocked, ready to unleash its deadly load should any
target present itself before he reached the apparent safety of a jungle
grove nestled in a swale between two hills.

Too late, he caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure in the trees, and the
glint of early morning sunlight off the barrel of a rifle.

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Zubov threw himself flat in the grass, bringing his rifle to bear on the
shape.

The pounding of rapid fire filled his ears, and he felt a stinging
sensation spread across the top of his head and his right shoulder.

The sky above him began to spin, and he lost his bearings for a moment.

"What the hell ... is happening?" he stuttered, feeling a wet substance
flow out of his mouth when he spoke.

He looked down at the grass below his chin. A crimson stain spread
between his elbows, and pain raced through his skull unlike any pain
he'd ever known.

/ am shot, he thought dully as he felt himself spinning in widening
circles. Tiny pinpoints of light flashed before his eyes as the world
around him darkened.

How did they get behind us? he wondered again, until a deep wracking
cough filled his mouth with blood.

His eyes batted shut, and the pain was gone.

Captain Raul Perez stepped from cover and stood over the bodies of the
mercenaries as his men came out of the jungle to join him. They all wore
the red berets of the Mexican Special Forces units that Harley Reno and
Hammer Hammerick had trained the year before when Perro Loco first
attacked Mexico.

Sergeant Julio Yara stepped to Perez's side. "I see our training last
year was not in vain, Captain," he said with a grin.

Perez looked around at his men, who'd suffered no loses in their ambush
of the mercenaries. "Yes, the tactics the ameri-canos taught us worked
extremely well."

Sergeant Yara turned to the other men. "Pick up all the weapons and
ammunition you can and strip the bodies for the buzzards. We shall leave
a message the mercenaries will not soon forget."

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Bruno Bottger was furious when Bergman told him of Bundt's report of the
mercenary unit slaughtered in the mountainous region of Oxaca.

"Why are we wasting valuable troops and equipment trying to occupy land
that is so remote?" he asked scornfully.

Bergman shrugged. "We did not feel the Mexican Army was such a threat,
Field Marshal. Evidently, they have learned some lessons from fighting
with the Americans last year."

"From now on, we will concentrate on taking Mexico City, not worthless
mountains and jungles that have no strategic significance," he ordered.
He looked at General Bundt. "Herman, you will use the port cities we've
already captured as staging points for reinforcements to build up a
force that is to be used only in our final attack against Mexico City.
Once we have the seat of government in our hands, the Mexican Army will
have no choice but to surrender."

"Yes, sir, Field Marshal," Bundt said, his face flaming with
embarrassment at his failure.

Bottger consulted a detailed topographic map of Mexico. "I want you to
leapfrog our troops to take Acapulco and then Las Truchas next. From
there we can ship in helicopters and gunships as well as men for the
final assault on Mexico City."

"Yes, sir, it will be done," Bundt said.

"I do not want any more reports of failure, Herman, or you will soon be
fighting as a private, do you understand me?"

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"Yes, sir," he said, saluting smartly and hurrying from the room.

After the general left, Sergei looked at his boss. "Why the haste to
take Mexico City, sir?"

Bottger sighed. "My bank accounts are depleted, Sergei. We need to get
to the gold stored in the capital city as soon as possible, before our
mercenaries find out we have nothing left with which to pay them."

Bergman nodded. "I understand."

"And, Sergei, have the scientists get the plague missiles and bombs
ready. As soon as we've secured Mexico City, I want to launch BW attacks
against Ben Raines and his troops. We cannot afford a repeat of Africa."

"Yes, sir."

Perro Loco's men were doing better. The roads toward Mexico City that
ran through the middle of the country were well maintained and hadn't
been mined extensively, so his heavy equipment and tanks were making
short work of the Mexican Army's defenses. In fact, his men had
progressed almost to the city of Puebla, less than a hundred miles south
of Mexico City, well within the range of his helicopter gunships. He was
almost ready to give the order for an all-out siege of the capital city.

Ben Raines was going over the intel reports with Mike Post when Dr.
Larry Buck knocked on his door and entered, a smile on his face.

"Hello, Doc," Ben said, looking up from the maps spread on his desk.
"You look like the cat that swallowed the canary."

"Better than that, Ben. We've finally managed to get the formula for a
vaccine against the bug Bottger is planning to use. I've ordered full
production, so we should be ready to begin inoculations within
twenty-four hours."

224

Ben nodded, returning the doc's smile. "Good, 'cause it looks like
Mexico City will fall within the week. After that, Bottger is sure to
begin deployment of his BW as soon as he can."

"There is something strange going on, though," Mike Post said.

"What's that, Mike?" Ben asked.

"My spies in the U.S. say there is no program of inoculation going on
there among Osterman's troops. What do you make of that?"

Ben glanced at Buck. "Is there any way they could already be immune, Larry?"

"No way, Ben. This bug is completely new and different from anything
I've seen before. If Osterman's not already immunizing her troops, then
they're going to be as vulnerable as ours would have been."

Ben scratched at a two-day growth of beard on his face. He'd been too
busy lately to shave, and the new growth itched terribly.

After a minute, he looked up. "That must mean Bottger is planning to
double-cross Osterman. I'll bet he figures the plague will devastate
both our countries, leaving the entire North American continent ripe for
picking."

"But, that'd mean millions of deaths," Buck said, a look of horror on
his face. "No one can be that callous toward human life."

"Don't count on it, Larry," Ben said. "If there's a spark of humanity in
Bruno Bottger, I haven't seen any sign of it yet."

"Ben, I don't know if I can in good conscience withhold this vaccine
from Osterman. Even if we are at war, those are still Americans living
there. Can you stand by and see millions of innocent people die just to
defeat a crazy woman?"

"No, Larry, of course not. I never regret killing men in battle who are
trying to kill me, but I've never countenanced killing civilians along
with the military, not even to win a war I didn't start. Of course,
we'll share the formula with Oster-

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man, but we'll not give her the actual vaccine until all of our men have
had a chance at it first."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Gather up all your papers on the illness Jersey and Coop suffered after
exposure to the bug, as well as your culture reports and basic
information on both the bug and your vaccine. I'll contact Sugar Babe
tomorrow, after we've begun to vaccinate our troops."

"I'll have the information on your desk first thing in the morning,"
Buck said.

226

Less than an hour after Ben had faxed the information on the BW of Bruno
Bottger to Claire Osterman's office, his phone rang.

He picked it up and said, "Hello, Claire."

"What is this shit, Raines? What have you got up your sleeve now?" she
asked in a harsh voice.

"I thought the information was pretty self-evident," he replied in a
reasonable tone of voice. "Are you seriously having trouble believing a
man like Bruno Bottger would be planning to double-cross you?"

"How did you know-" she began.

Ben interrupted her. "How did I know you are in cahoots with Bruno
Bottger?" he finished for her.

"I don't know where you got the idea Bottger is still alive, or that I'm
in cahoots with him, as you say," she said lamely.

"Oh, come on, Claire. Who else would have the technical know-how to take
the same bug Bottger used against the world a couple of years ago and
cause a mutation that would make it even more deadly?"

When he was met with silence on the other end of the phone, Ben
continued. "And as far as knowing about your deal with the devil, we've
known about that from the very beginning, Claire," Ben said, stretching
the truth to make her even more unsure of his sources.

"Well, anyway," she continued in a stronger tone of voice,

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"why should I trust any information you give me after you sent your
assassins to try and kill me?"

"Claire, if I wanted you dead, you'd already be decomposing."

"Bullshit, Raines. You know attempted assassination of a country's
leaders is expressly forbidden by the Geneva Convention rules of war."

Ben threw back his head and laughed. "Claire, I'm surprised you even
know the Geneva Convention rules, since you've broken every single one
of them since you've been president of the U.S., especially the ones
concerning the use of chemical and biological weapons."

She paused, then: "Nevertheless, answer my question. Why should I trust
you now?"

"Because you know it fits with Bottger's character, or lack thereof,"
Ben said patiently.

"If he's got this weapon ready, why hasn't he used it already?" she
asked, her tone becoming more businesslike.

"Probably because he needs you to keep me busy until he can gain control
of Mexico by taking Mexico City. Once he's established there and the
Mexican Army is out of the picture, I think he'll launch a full-scale
attack on the SUSA with his plague bacteria."

Another hesitation while she pondered the reasonableness of Ben's idea.

"And, Claire," Ben continued, "if you're thinking that might be good for
you, think again. If the plague gets a hold here in the SUSA, even on a
minor scale, remember what happened last time he and you played with
biological weapons. Plagues know no boundaries. The sickness will surely
cross the border like a wildfire out of control, and burn you as badly
as us."

"Not if he shares the vaccine with us," Claire said, an uncertain note
in her voice.

"Has he made any effort to even inform you of his plans, much less share
his vaccine with you?" Ben asked.

228

"There's still time," Claire said, "if what you're saying is the truth."

"Now who's bullshitting whom, Claire?" Ben asked. "My medical experts
tell me the vaccine will take from one to two weeks to become effective
after inoculation. If that's true, and Bottger is only days away from
taking Mexico City, then you haven't got a lot of time to prepare, have
you?"

"Shit!" she said, evidently realizing she'd been set up as surely as
night follows day.

"Claire, in spite of our . . . philosophical differences, our countries
share a common history and a common blood bond. We are all, in a sense,
Americans. For that reason, and for that reason alone, I don't wish to
see your citizens die by the millions."

"What do you suggest?" she said slowly, as if thinking over his words.

"I'd like to make a deal."

"What kind of deal?" she asked, more suspicious now.

"Call it a quid pro quo," Ben said, "a tit-for-tat sort of deal."

"Oh, so your humanity has a price?" she said scornfully.

Ben chuckled again. "In the words of the immortal writer Robert A.
Heinlein, Claire, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch."

"So, what's this 'lunch,' as you call it, going to cost me?"

"Simply pull your troops back from our borders and stand them down."

"That's it?" she asked.

"That's it, Claire," he answered. "It's a war you know you can't win
anyway, so you have nothing to lose by doing the deal."

"And if we do this?"

"I'll ship you detailed instructions on the manufacture of a vaccine
effective against the anthrax plague, as well as a supply to get you
started with your vaccinations until you can make your own."

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229

"And that's all?" she asked.

"Oh, and one more thing," Ben said.

"I knew it," Claire said.

"You've got to allow inspectors from the United Nations to monitor your
troop withdrawal."

"What?"

"It's not that I don't trust you, Claire, but you've got to admit,
you're not known for keeping your word."

"You're a son of a bitch, Raines! You know that?"

"Son of a bitch or no, Claire, you know I always keep my word,
especially when it means the saving of millions of lives," Ben said.

After a few seconds, Claire answered, "All right, Raines, I'll do it."

"Good. You've made the right choice, Claire. I'll arrange with President
Jeffreys to have Jean-Francois Chapelle get some inspectors on their way
to your country immediately."

"What about the vaccine?" Claire asked. "If what you say is true, time
is of the essence."

"I will take you at your word and send it right away," Ben said. Then,
in a harsher voice, he added, "And, Claire, if you double-cross me after
I send it, I make you a solemn promise. I will bomb you and your country
into the Dark Ages."

The only answer Ben got was a loud click as Claire slammed her phone down.

He called Mike Post and told him of his deal with Claire.

"Do you think you can trust her?" Mike asked.

"You never know with Claire, so here's what I want you to do. Have
communications get in touch with Jackie Malone and her crew of
guerrillas, and have them cease all aggressive tactics, but to stay
there undercover, just in case Claire doesn't come through on her end of
the bargain."

Mike chuckled. "Jackie's not going to like sitting around with her hands
in her pockets," he said.

Ben smiled. "I know, but tell her it's the best we can do

230

right now. If I know Claire Osterman, Jackie will get another chance at
her before all this is over."

Claire slammed the phone down, muttering, "That arrogant prick! Just who
does he think he is?"

Herb Knoff, who'd been sitting across the room listening to half the
conversation, raised his eyebrows quizzically.

Claire glanced at him. "Get General Stevens and Harlan Millard in here
right now!"

After her advisors had been assembled, Claire got right to the point.
"Ben Raines called. He said he's got proof Bottger is planning a
double-cross."

"What?" General Stevens said. "But how? His troops are thousands of
miles from here, and on the other side of the SUSA from us. How in the
hell can he hurt us?"

"The son of a bitch has got a new BW. A mutation of the plague he tried
in Africa some years back."

"But, Claire," Millard said diffidently. "We knew that when we agreed to
use him, and we've all been inoculated against his BWs."

"Not this one, according to Raines," she said, striding back and forth
in front of her desk.

"Can we trust Raines?" Herb Knoff asked.

"Ben Raines is a lot of things," Claire said, "a son of a bitch not the
least, but he's not a liar. If he says something, you can take it to the
bank, even if you don't much like him."

"What about this so-called proof?" Stevens asked.

She pointed to the pile of papers and culture reports Ben had faxed her.
"It's all in there. I want you to get it to our medical people immediately."

"What does Raines suggest we do about it, and what does he want?"
Stevens asked.

"For us to pull back our troops from the borders with the SUSA. And for
that, he'll give us the formula for the vaccine and some samples until
we can get our own made."

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"But if we pull back, that'll give Raines room to invade us," Stevens said.

Harlan Millard glanced at the general. "Raines would never invade, not
unless we attacked first," he said. "It would go against everything the
man stands for."

"What do you mean?" Stevens asked, unbelieving.

"The main tenet of Raines's entire philosophy is that man is accountable
only to himself, and responsible for his own actions. The SUSA itself is
built upon that fact, so they would never, ever try and force people to
live under their rules. Hell, even when he's defeated us in the past,
he's always allowed the prisoners he's taken to return here if they
wanted to, and he's never taken any additional land from his original
borders. He is, at heart, an isolationist."

"Harlan's right, Brad," Claire said. "The only thing we lose by pulling
back is the advantage we're giving Perro Loco and Bruno Bottger by
dividing Raines's troops and his attention."

"But . . ." Stevens began as Claire held up her hand.

"No, General, listen to me. Loco and Bottger are on the very steps of
Mexico City, so even if Raines wanted to, he couldn't stop them from
taking the country. Therefore, our ruse has served its purpose and we
now have two powers right on the SUSA's back door. Once Loco and Bottger
fight it out over who's going to control Mexico, we'll be able at some
point to deal with the victor and can, if we then wish, resume our
hostilities with Raines and the SUSA. But until we have protection
against this BW of Bottger's, we need to play it cool."

"So, what happens after we get the vaccine?" Millard asked.

Claire smiled evilly. "For one thing, we'll only give the vaccine to
those people loyal to my command, and to the most productive citizens.
If Bottger does end up using the BW, it will give us a way to cut some
of the deadwood out of our system, like all the bastards on welfare who
refuse to work to help the country."

Millard's face blanched. "Claire, I can't believe you are just

232

going to sit by while thousands, perhaps millions of your citizens die a
horrible death."

"Believe it, Harlan. Face facts. This country's almost broke. We can no
longer afford to support the idle, those who won't help themselves.
There just isn't enough to go around."

"I won't be a party to this genocide!" Millard said heatedly.

Claire gave him a cool look. "All right, Harlan. If you feel so strongly
about it, you can give your vaccine to one of the needy you're so
concerned about."

Harlan sat back down, his face ashen.

Claire grinned. "I didn't think so."

Stevens cleared his throat. "By the way, Claire, are you going to
contact Perro Loco and tell him of Bottger's possible double cross?"

She considered this as she walked around to sit behind her desk.

Finally, after a few moments, she shook her head. "I don't think so, Brad."

"Why not?" Herb asked. "After all, if Bottger does use this plague
bacteria, Loco's troops won't be immune any more than we or the SUSA
would be. He and his men will be totally wiped out when the sickness
spreads."

"You're assuming Loco knows nothing of this, Herb. How do we know that?"
Claire asked. "What if Loco and Bottger are in this together, and have
made some arrangement behind my back to divide up the North American
continent after we're all dead or dying?

"If I approach Loco, and he is in on the plan, it will tip Bottger off
that we're on to him. No, I think it best to get the vaccine from Raines
and sit back and see what happens."

233

About the time Herman Bundt's mercenary forces in Las Truchas, a coastal
town 250 miles west of Mexico City, were being resupplied and reinforced
with additional troops by freighter, and Perro Loco's forces were
pounding the Mexican Army's defenses into rubble to the south, El
Presidente Eduardo Pena told the leader of his Army, General Jose
Guerra, to contact Ben Raines and see if the SUSA might after all be
able to send some troops to help protect Mexico City and his government.

Guerra felt like pulling the Colt .45 automatic pistol from his holster
and shooting his leader between the eyes, but that would leave only
himself to take the blame for losing Mexico to these rebels. Instead, he
took a deep breath and tried to explain the facts of life to the
imbecile leading his country.

"But, El Presidente," Guerra said, as patiently as he could, "the German
mercenary troops are at Las Truchas to our west, and Perro Loco's army
has just taken Puebla to the south and Veracruz to the east. It is much
too late for anyone short of God to do anything to save Mexico City."

The president leaned over his desk and picked up the phone. "Get me Ben
Raines immediately," he ordered, staring at Guerra as if he didn't know
what he was talking about.

"We will see, General," Pena said while waiting to be connected to the
leader of the SUSA's Army. "Mexico is much too important for Raines to
let it fall into the hands of Loco

234

and his ally, President Osterman. You will see, he will move heaven and
earth to save us."

The phone buzzed and Pena switched on the speaker. "General Raines, this
is Presidente Eduardo Pena of Mexico."

"Hello, Presidente Pena. How are you?" Raines asked, his voice casual,
as if he received calls from heads of state all the time.

"At the present, General Raines, I am not so well. The rebel forces are
knocking at the doorstep of Mexico City, and I am now ready to accept
the help you so generously offered last week."

There was an audible sigh over the speaker. "I am sorry you waited so
long, presidente," Raines said. "But our intel says the rebels are less
than an hour away from taking your city. There is nothing I can do for
you now. If you had taken my offer in a timely manner, perhaps we could
have avoided this terrible outcome."

"But . . . but you must! I command it!" the president shouted.

"Sorry, Eduardo, better luck next time," Raines said, his voice heavy
with irony as he hung up the phone.

As Pena glanced across the room at Guerra, the sound of helicopters came
through the palace windows, followed by the raucous roar of machine-guns
strafing his troops in the square below.

Pena stepped toward the window, then ducked as a couple of Kiowa
helicopters buzzed the building, missing it by only yards as they flew past.

"Damn it, Guerra, do something!" Pena ordered, pointing his hand at his
general, sweat forming on his brow and darkening his splendid uniform
under the armpits and across the back.

Guerra smiled sadly. "As Raines said, it is much too late." He started
for the door, then called back over his shoulder, "You've killed us, you
fool."

A tremendous explosion sounded just outside the window,

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and the wall of the presidential suite fell in, showering both men with
stucco and plaster as they dove to the floor, bullets stitching a path
yards from them.

"General Guerra," Pena called from his position on the floor under his
desk. "What am I to do?"

Guerra looked up as he dusted plaster of paris and wooden splinters off
his uniform coat. "I suspect you'll die very shortly, presidente, unless
you're very lucky."

Mexican Army jeeps, of World War II vintage, pulled up in front of the
palace. All of them had twenty-caliber machine guns on posts behind the
drivers, and Guerra's troops tried in vain to shoot down the swooping,
diving killing machines that were the Kiowas attacking them. Two squads
of infantry spread out in a line in front of the palace door, taking
shelter behind the balustrade and firing over the walls at Perro Loco's
troops, who were swarming up the manicured lawn of the palace grounds
like ants from a disturbed bed.

Two of the jeeps in the courtyard exploded, jumping into the air under
the impact of the antitank rockets the Kiowas carried. The drivers and
machine-gunners' bodies were torn apart and scattered over the white-hot
cement of the yard like broken rag dolls as mangled parts of the jeeps
rained down upon them.

Guerra ran from the building, shooting into the air with his .45, and
jumped into the third jeep, shouting at the driver to take off.

"What about El Presidente?" the man asked as he pressed the starter
button and pumped the accelerator pedal furiously.

"Fuck the president! Go!" Guerra screamed, snapping off shots from his
pistol until the slide locked open signaling the magazine was empty.

The driver spun the wheels and took off, just as the cement where they'd
been erupted under the onslaught of 20mm Minigun fire and a helicopter
roared by overhead, banking heavily into the midday sun.

Taking the corner on two wheels, the driver of the jeep

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carrying General Guerra managed to get under the cover of the
fifty-foot-tall stately palms ringing the drive to the palace courtyard,
bullets from Perro Loco's troops pinging the metal fenders of the jeep,
but miraculously missing the occupants.

Once it was away from the building, the choppers seemed to ignore the
jeep, and concentrated on the soldiers still trying to protect the
palace. They dove and swooped, pumping thousands of rounds of
machine-gun fire into the porch, ripping soldiers to pieces and
cratering the front of the building with hundreds of pockmarks in the
stuccoed walls.

As Guerra's jeep turned a final corner down the main boulevard, he
glanced back to see several Chinook helicopters land in the palace
courtyard and disgorge hundreds of mercenaries, who swarmed the palace
like ants at a picnic, killing the last of the remaining defenders, even
though many of them had their hands in the air trying to surrender.

In the distance, tanks and half-tracks containing more of Perro Loco's
troops could be seen churning up the concrete of the main streets
leading toward the palace, facing only token resistance from the Mexican
Army, which by now was in full retreat.

The German mercenaries were congregating on the other side of the
palace, some on foot and others riding in HumVees and half-track
personnel carriers. All were waving their rifles and machine-guns in the
air and shouting in victory.

"Where to now, General?" the driver asked, his eyes wide with fright as
he negotiated the narrow roads leading away from the palace and out of town.

"Drive north, Jose," Guerra said. "If we can make the Navy base at
Tampico, perhaps there is still a chance for me to convince Raines to
help us. Meanwhile," he said, as he picked up the microphone from the
radio under the jeep's dashboard, "I'll have what's left of the Army
pull back to the north of the city, and we'll arrange to rendezvous near
the Army base at Durango with as many troops as can get there."

237

"Do you think there's still a chance Mexico can be saved?" Jose asked.

Guerra glanced at him, wondering whether he should tell him the truth or
give him false hope.

"There is always a chance, Jose. As they say in America, the opera's not
over until the fat lady sings."

Jose, clearly not familiar either with the saying or with opera,
wrinkled his forehead but continued staring straight ahead, and didn't
ask any more stupid questions.

By suppertime, most of the dead and wounded soldiers had been carted
away, to be placed in mass graves dug by bulldozers. The wounded were
thrown in the pits along with those already dead. Both Bottger and Loco
said they had neither the time nor the inclination to care for wounded
men who'd fought against them.

The soldiers of both Loco's and Bottger's armies were sent out into the
city to make sure there were no surviving soldiers to act as snipers or
commit sabotage. The soldiers relieved the stress of their latest battle
by raping and pillaging the city, killing almost as many innocent
citizens as they had soldiers in the battle.

Meanwhile, Bruno Bottger and Perro Loco, along with their
lieutenants-Jim Strunk, Paco Valdez, Rudolf Hessner, Herman Bundt, and
Sergei Bergman-gathered in the presidential dining room to be served a
dinner that had already been prepared for El Presidente Pena.

Eduardo Pena's cries could be heard through the open window. When he'd
tried to give himself up to the invading soldiers, they'd taken him out
into the courtyard, stripped his elaborate uniform off, and hung his
naked body upside down by his feet.

Both Bottger and Loco had smiled their approval of his status when they
marched side by side into the Presidential Palace just before sundown.

238

While they ate dinner, Bottger and Loco discussed how they each planned
to proceed next.

"I see no reason to change our tactics, since they have been so
successful so far," Loco said, spearing a piece of prime beef on his
fork and transferring it to his mouth.

Bottger, who'd elected to eat beef enchiladas smothered in salsa and
cheese, wiped his mouth and took a deep drink of his wine before replying.

"I agree, Loco," he said amicably. "I will have my troops move up the
western coast toward the coastal city of Mazat-lan and then, once we've
established a beachhead there, inland toward Durango. From either of
those two locations, we will be within air-strike range of the southern
border of the SUSA."

"Excellent, Field Marshal," Loco said. "And I will position my army on
the eastern border up the coast toward Tampico and eventually to
Monterrey. That way we can form a pincer movement against Texas and the
lower borders of the SUSA that will make Raines divide his troops to
resist us."

Bottger nodded. "And if President Osterman fulfills her side of our
bargain, Herr Raines will be kept very busy indeed defending his pitiful
country."

Loco picked up his brandy glass and clinked it against Bottger's
wineglass in a toast to their mutual success.

Later, in his personal quarters, Bottger addressed Bergman and Bundt. "I
think as soon as we've taken Mazatlan, we can start our bombardment with
the anthrax plague."

"Do you think our helicopters and airplanes will be able to deliver the
bombs against the SUSA," Sergei Bergman asked as Rudolf Hessner prepared
the field marshal's bed. "After all, I've heard the SUSA has excellent
air-defense measures."

Bottger shrugged. "Whether or not the planes survive the attack is
immaterial. The bombs will be on board, and the

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scientists have designed them so that even if the aircraft are shot
down, the bacteria will still spread. Within a matter of two weeks, the
SUSA will be devastated by the effects of mass sickness and death. If
we're lucky, the soldiers of Ben Raines will begin to die like flies."

"What about the soldiers of Perro Loco, Field Marshal?" Herman Bundt
asked. "Won't they also begin to be affected by the plague?"

Bottger smiled as he rubbed into his scarred face a special cream that
the doctors had prepared to keep the skin soft. "Of course, Herman, that
is the idea. Soon, the only army not wiped out by anthrax will be under
my command. A situation I have dreamed of for the past ten years."

In Loco's quarters, Loco was also discussing details of the upcoming
campaign with Paco Valdez and Jim Strunk.

"I thought once we took Mexico City, you were going to let me kill that
Kraut bastard," Jim Strunk said.

Loco held up his hand. "Don't be too anxious, Jim. There will be plenty
of time and opportunities to dispatch our friend after he has outlived
his usefulness to us. Once we are within striking distance of the SUSA,
I will give the order and the field marshal will suffer a fatal dose of
food poisoning, leaving me in command of his troops."

"What about his associates?" Valdez asked.

Loco shrugged. "Once their leader is dead, they can either go along with
the program or they can die. What do you think they will decide to do?"

"And his troops?" Strunk asked.

"They are mercenaries," Loco said, stretching and yawning as he prepared
for bed. "They will fight for whoever has the money to pay them to fight."

"He's right, Jim," Valdez said. "Mercenaries' only loyalty is to their
paycheck."

240

"I hope you are right, Loco," Strunk said. "Because I'm getting awfully
tired of that strutting peacock of a German."

"Be patient, Jim, your time will come soon enough," Loco said.

241

While Dr. Buck sent teams of medics to all of the various battalions
scattered around the SUSA to make sure all of the troops received the
new anti-BW vaccine, Ben gathered his team in his office.

Harley Reno, Hammer Hammerick, Coop and Jersey, fully recovered now, and
Anna, Beth, and Corrie all waited to see what Ben had in mind for them
in the upcoming battle with Bottger and Loco's troops.

"Get your gear packed, guys, we're heading south," Ben said without
preamble.

"By we, you mean you're going with us, sir?" Harley asked.

"Yes. I've just gotten off the phone with General Guerra from Mexico. He
and several battalions of Mexican Army troops have retreated after the
fall of Mexico City to Durango and the Navy base at Tampico."

"And just why are we going down there?" Coop asked, playing the spoiler
as usual.

"He's asked for our help in positioning and training his troops to slow
or stop the advance of the rebels' armies," Ben said. "And I've agreed
to send him our best people at staging guerrilla warfare."

"And if I may ask, sir, why are you coming with us?" Harley said, a
questioning look on his face. "Aren't you needed here to coordinate the
defenses against Osterman's troops?"

"I've reached an agreement with President Osterman, and she's going to
call off her Army in exchange for our providing

242

her with the new vaccine against anthrax," Ben said, aware that his team
knew nothing of his talk with the president of the USA the night before.
"Therefore, since I'm doing nothing but sitting on my butt here in this
office, I've decided I need some time in the field before I go
terminally stale."

"An agreement with Sugar Babe?" Coop asked, screwing up his face. "Do
you think you can trust her to keep her part of the bargain?"

"Not usually, but in this case I've got the UN. monitoring her troop
withdrawals. If she reneges on the deal, we'll have plenty of warning."

"So, once again, we're going to Mexico to baby-sit the Army and pull
their fat out of the fire?" Jersey said with disgust.

"Not only their fat, Jerse," Ben said, "but ours as well. Dr. Buck tells
me he needs a couple of weeks before the vaccine takes effect. If we let
Loco and Bottger steamroll over the Mexican Army, they'll be able to get
within range to send their BW to our borders before our troops are fully
protected."

"So, we don't have to kick their butts single-handed?" Har-ley asked.
"We just have to slow them down a bit?"

"That's about the size of it," Ben said. "We also need to buy some time
while Striginov gets the 505 Bat moved further down into western Mexico
and McGowen gets the 502 situated and dug in in the eastern half of the
country."

Mike Post knocked on the door and entered Ben's office. "Ben, I've got
the latest intel info for you on Loco's and Bottger's movements."

"Go ahead, Mike."

"Bottger's mercenaries are headed up the west coast toward Mazatlan,
while the troops under Loco are moving rapidly toward Tampico on the
east coast."

Ben spread his hands. "There you go, guys. We don't have a minute to
waste. Get ready and we'll move out in an Osprey at 1400 hours."

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243

As the Osprey descended from fifteen thousand feet through heavy cloud
cover in its final descent toward Durango, Mexico, Ben and the team
started to get their gear ready for a quick exit of the plane.

Suddenly, the pilot banked hard to the left and pulled the nose up until
the plane was dangerously near stall speed.

"Mayday! Mayday!" the pilot yelled over the intercom. "We're under heavy
attack by three Kiowa gunship helicopters."

"Shit!" Harley Reno said, dropping his duffel bag and ripping a
cargo-hold door open as he tried to keep from being thrown from his feet.

He reached into the closet-sized space and began to dig out parachutes
stored there. As he grabbed them, he pitched them over his shoulder to
Hammer. "Everybody get one of these on," he yelled over the roar of the
Osprey's twin engines as the pilot jigged and swerved to avoid the fire
of the Miniguns that could be heard even over the engine noise.

Ben's team quickly slipped the chutes on, and pulled their Uzis over
their heads to let them hang by straps across their chests in case they
had to bail out.

The Osprey shuddered under the impact of hundreds of 20mm shells as one
of the Kiowas dived on the plane as it made a sweeping turn to the left.
The right engine burst into flame and the plane nosed down. After the
pilot feathered the engine so the prop wouldn't be as much of a drag, he
clicked on the intercom.

"General Raines, there's no way I can climb high enough to avoid the
choppers with only one engine. You guys better bail, and bail fast!"

Harley pulled the emergency release handle on the rear door, and the
pilot added, "We're about fifty miles north and west of Durango. Looks
like some heavy jungle down there, so you should have plenty of cover
after you land." He didn't add, "If you don't impale yourself on a tree
coming down."

Harley let the door fly off its hinges, torn away by the slip-

244

stream wind, and pumped his fist in the air. "Come on, get the lead
out!" he shouted over the noise.

One by one, with Ben going last before Harley, the team dived out into
the early evening dusk and tumbled toward the jungle below.

Their last sight of the Osprey was of it angling down, trailing smoke
from its engine, two of the Kiowas following and continuing to strafe it
with Minigun fire.

As they floated on the air currents, pulling on parachute strings to try
to stay together in a close formation, the third Kiowa banked steeply
and arrowed at them, its Miniguns winking in the darkness as it tried to
shoot them out of the sky.

All of the team jerked their Uzis around and began to fire back at the
helicopter, catching it off guard as it drew nearer and nearer. It got
close enough for them to see the Plexiglas in front of the pilot
spiderweb under the impact of hundreds of 9mm bullets from the
machine-guns, and then it turned turtle, smoke pouring from its turbines
as it fell to the earth below, a giant fireball erupting and lighting up
the night as it impacted in dense foliage.

Luckily, no one in the team was seriously hurt upon landing, though Anna
suffered a severely sprained ankle, which Jersey had to tape up from the
first-aid kit in her pack.

Ben gathered his team around him and consulted his compass. "Looks like
we need to head south by southeast if the pilot had our bearing correct."

"Shit, just what I was looking forward to," Coop complained, "another
fifty-mile march through snake-infested jun-gle."

"Look on the bright side," Hammer said with a grin. "At least they're
not sending somebody to pick us up from a plane crash with a sponge."

After the Osprey exploded and fell burning to the ground, the pilot of
the lead Kiowa radioed Sergei Bergman in Mexico City.

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245

"Sir, we've just attacked and shot down an American Os-prey heading
toward Durango."

"Excellent, Jurgen," Sergei said.

"One thing, sir. Six or seven men ejected from the plane before it went
down, and the pilot was on the radio to his base, saying General Raines
was in the group and calling for air support."

"What is your location, Jurgen?" Sergei asked, sounding excited at the
chance to get Ben Raines.

"Approximately forty-three miles north-northwest of Durango."

"Can you intercept Raines and his men?" Sergei asked.

"No, sir. We burned up most of our fuel in the attack on the Osprey.
We'll be lucky to get back to base as it is."

"Come on home then. I'll send another team," Sergei said, signing off.

He put the radio down and rang Bruno Bottger on his private line in his
quarters.

"Sir, one of our Kiowas just shot a plane carrying Ben Raines out of the
air."

"Is the son of a bitch dead?"

"No, sir. He and several of his men managed to bail out of the plane.
But I've got his exact location."

"Send a team after him immediately. This is too good a chance to pass
up, Sergei."

"Yes, sir."

246

Former Navy SEAL Sergeant Gerald Jones listened to the air whisper
through his black parachute as he guided it down with the aid of hand
stirrups toward a starlit opening in the jungle. Eleven highly skilled
assault troops came from the inky skies above him as their cargo plane,
a C-130, swept back to the north at low altitude, staying off Mexican
radar as much as it could, flying just above the jungle treetops at
dangerously low levels after the chutists made their jump from higher
altitudes.

Jones hit the ground, rolling, gathering his chute cords as soon as he
came to his feet. All around him, men in black shirts with blackface
greasepaint hit the meadow, tumbling, making as little noise as possible
despite heavy packs, automatic rifles, and explosives.

"Down safe, so far," he heard Corporal Bill Woods say in a whisper,
collecting his parachute only a few yards from where Jones landed.

"Yeah. So far, so good. Get the men in those trees at the edge of this
clearing. Make sure everybody's got his chute, so there's no telltale
sign of our landing. Any son of a bitch drops so much as a cigarette
butt an' I'm gonna kill him myself. Pass the word around. The Mexicans
may have patrols out looking for Raines too. We can't let 'em find a
goddamn thing."

"Right, Sergeant." Woods hurried off into the night to get the assault
team together.

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247

Jones gathered his black chute, dragging it from the meadow to a tangle
of palm trees. They were on a special assignment for Field Marshal Bruno
Bottger, to find where Ben Raines and his men had landed when they
bailed out of a plane, and to kill him and everyone with him. The orders
were to take no prisoners, but Bottger wanted Raines's head to prove he
was dead.

No one seemed quite sure where General Raines was, despite the best
intelligence General Bottger's men could gather. They knew he'd bailed
out forty-three miles north-northwest of Durango, but that was four
hours ago. He could be almost anywhere in this stretch of jungle by now.

Jones had only heard about Raines ... he'd never seen him in the flesh.
But if all went as planned, he would get his first glimpse of Raines as
a dead man, a bullet-riddled corpse, or a pile of pulpy flesh and bone
if an RPG got him first. Jones's team carried enough firepower-RPGs,
rocket launchers, and other explosives-to blow Raines out of a bunker
dug halfway down in the Mexican soil. While other assault groups in the
past had failed to get Raines, Jones harbored no doubts he could
accomplish his objective, and he'd said so to General Bottger and his
second in command, Sergei Bergman himself, even though he harbored a
lingering dislike for the German leader. Bottger was the kind of madman
anyone could hate, a real lunatic. But the pay was good with his
advancing armies.

Jones's men were veterans of other wars, regional conflicts. Older,
seasoned, experienced, they would not make the same mistakes made by the
younger mercenaries Bruno Bottger seemed to prefer. The hotshot Russians
had been particularly stupid in the south, allowing a Mexican band of
Special Forces troops to close a circle around them, blowing them to
bits in less than ten minutes when the meres under Captain Zubov walked
into a deadly trap.

A figure came dashing toward Jones. As a reflex, the sergeant swung the
muzzle of his AK-47 up, ready to blow the man away unless he identified
himself with a code word.

248

"The men are in position, Sergeant," Corporal Lloyd Davis said, out of
breath. "We're waiting for orders."

"You forgot the goddamn code word, Davis!"

"Parrot! Parrot!"

"Raines and his group must be over that way. Fan out in a line, Davis.
Pass the word down the line, and this time, remember the goddamn code word!"

"Parrot, Sergeant."

"A mistake like that can get you killed, Davis. Don't make it again."

"Should I leave two men back as a rear guard, Sergeant Jones?"

"Of course, you damn fool. How many times have we been through this
drill? Send McKinney and Smith back. They know what to do."

"But, Sergeant," Davis stammered, "Bill McKinney can't see a damn thing
in the dark."

Jones turned back to Davis with his jaw clenched. "Corporal McKinney can
smell an enemy at a hundred yards. Never question my orders again. I
picked Bill McKinney myself, because he doesn't make dumb mistakes . . .
like forgetting the goddamn password on a mission."

"Yes, Sergeant. Sorry. I'll pass the word down the line right away."

Jones forced himself to relax. Davis was right. Mckinney's eyesight was
failing some. But a soldier with experience didn't need to see like an
eagle to know who to kill, or when. Davis was too young, too green, to
understand. Davis had been his last choice for the Blackshirt mission,
when no more experienced men were available.

Corporal Woods came back with his automatic rifle slung from his
shoulder on a leather strap. "The men are ready to advance, Sergeant."

"Move out. But tell them to be careful. Raines has six or seven men with
him, according to our intelligence reports. We probably won't be able to
see much of them because of this

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249

thick jungle. Look for any lights, and listen for the sound of machetes
clearing a path through the jungle. They make just enough noise that, on
a quiet night like this, we should be able to hear them if they're
moving. And tell everyone to be on the lookout for an ambush. Raines is
no dummy, and he'll know we're coming for him."

"How can we avoid an ambush in the dark, Sergeant?"

"You can't, you idiot, but have the men spread out so if they open fire
on us, we won't be all bunched up together. Now get moving. We don't
know exactly how many of them to expect or how well armed they are,
except they were evidently able to bring down a Kiowa with whatever
weapons they were carrying. They may even have some land mines with
them, so watch where you step, and for God's sake be quiet."

"I'll get the word down the line, Sergeant. But land mines are gonna be
a problem. We don't have any sweepers, to keep our backpacks as light as
we could. Maybe we should have brought at least one."

"We have no choice but to gamble, Corporal. If somebody steps on a mine,
then all hell's gonna break loose. We will have lost the element of
surprise."

"What about dogs, Sergeant? You think they might have dogs?"

Sergeant Jones looked at him as if he were crazy. "Dogs? You think they
parachuted out of a burning aircraft with dogs in their hands, you
idiot?" he whispered in a harsh voice to Corporal Woods.

"Uh, no, I guess not," Corporal Woods answered, a chagrined look on his
face as he swung off at a trot to deliver Jones's instructions.

The night in these Mexican jungles was as black as any Gerald Jones had
ever seen. Not a breath of air moved among the trees. A man could be
heard sneezing or farting at five hundred yards, an advantage for his
men, and a disadvantage if one of them made a mistake.

Jones waved a silent signal across the grassy meadow. In

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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 assault 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 hell! Shoot the bastards!"

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, goddamnit, I'm hit! Shoot the son of a bitch!"

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 cocked 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

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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 assassinate 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 assault 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 assault troops. His men were being slaughtered, from
the sound of it ... not that he gave a shit 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 damn 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

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him wasn't Private Watts or any other soldier in his company of Blackshirts.

"Nice shirt 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 shirt."

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 hell 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 helluva mistake."

"Would you shoot a man in the back?"

"I'd shoot a sorry son of a bitch like you in the balls if the light was
better. I suppose I'll have to take the only target you've given me. But
just for the hell 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

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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 compass 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."

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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 (pronounced 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 120mm
cannons 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

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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 assholes," 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

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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 massed 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.

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"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 Hellfire 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 butt 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."

"That is excellent news, Ben," Guerra said. "Perhaps Tam-pico can be
saved after all."

Lieutenant Tommy Bartholomew took off in his Aardvark from an improvised
airstrip that'd been bulldozed in the desert by the big Catapillar
Cat-9's the night before. He'd barely had time after his night landing
to get six hours' sleep and eat a quick breakfast before Ike McGowen had
told him of Ben's request for a little harassment of Loco's troops at
Ciudad de Valles.

The General Dynamics F-l 11 Aardvark was the first supersonic
fighter-bomber with the ability to make low-level precision bombing
attacks by day or night, in any kind of weather. Known as the Aardvark
because of its droop-nose silhouette, the swept-wing F-l 11 entered
service over Vietnam in 1968. In 1986, F-lll's based in England struck
at Colonel Qaddafi's

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Libya, and in 1991 the F-lll was one of the anti-Saddam Hussein
coalition's most important aircraft. Now, almost fifty years since its
first combat flight, the F-lll was still a mighty killing machine, and
Bartholomew loved it as most men loved their wives.

Carrying almost eleven tons of bombs, it took almost three thousand feet
to get airborne, but once in the air, the fighter flew at almost eight
hundred knots southward toward Loco's troop concentrations in the City
of the Valleys.

Assured by McGowen that there were few if any civilians in the occupied
city, Tommy dove out of the sun at just under the speed of sound, his
electronic sights picking out targets of tanks, ammo dumps, fuel storage
tanks, and troop bivouac areas.

On his first sweep, catching Loco's men completely unaware, he dropped
his bombs so low that he flew through the dark red mushroom clouds of
debris and flames that rose upon exploding. Sweeping up in a wide turn,
he glanced over his shoulder and saw several helicopters and two smaller
jet fighters angling on the runway south of the city to get in position
to take off.

Banking so steeply his cheeks bulged and flattened against the G-forces,
he whipped around and made another run, this time the craters of his
bombs marching inexorably toward the hapless planes still warming up for
takeoff. Two of the helicopters managed to get off the ground before
Tommy's bombs totally destroyed the runway, three hangars, and most of
the control tower of the airport.

His left wing shuddered under the impact of the Kiowa's 20mm Minigun as
he swept past the first helicopter. Ignoring the damage and the red
warning lights that lit up his instrument panel like a Christmas tree,
Tommy keyed the second Kiowa into his fire-control computer and pressed
the button on his wing guns.

Every fifth bullet was a tracer, and the red dots of death screamed
toward the helicopter, finally mating with it in a

260

fiery explosion that rocked the F-lll as it flew by. Tommy watched the
wreckage land in a field of scattering troops, incinerating at least a
couple of dozen screaming men.

The control stick shook and shuddered in his hands, and he could see
pieces of his left wing peeling off where the 20mm shells had stitched a
pattern across.

He made one more pass at high altitude to stay out of range of the
remaining Kiowa, and dumped the rest of his bombs indiscriminately over
the city, watching most of them disappear under clouds of smoke and dust
and flames.

Reluctantly, he pointed the nose of his beloved F-lll north toward
Tampico and keyed the mike on his radio.

"Mayday, Mayday," he said calmly, dialing in the frequency of the Navy
base at Tampico that he'd been given in his pre-flight briefing that
morning.

"This is Big Bird One-One-One to base at Tampico. I have a Mayday."

"Come in, Big Bird, this is Tampico Navy base," a Spanish-accented voice
said in fairly good English.

"I've taken a hit on my left wing and the stabilizer is out. I need
clearance for a straight-in approach on Runway B-12," Tommy said,
glancing at the map strapped to his right thigh.

"Come ahead, Big Bird. We'll have fire trucks and foaming equipment
standing by for your landing."

"Roger, Tampico. Get the beer ready. I've got a mouthful of dust to cut."

"Roger that, Big Bird. Good luck, amigo," the voice said, signing off.

Minutes later, his wings wiggling and shaking more than Elvis's hips
ever had, Tommy lowered the nose of the F-lll toward the base at Tampico
and lowered his flaps, hoping they would help calm the jittering of his
wings on final approach.

His speed slowed, making control of the aircraft more difficult, and
sweat began to pour from his forehead and face as he gripped the control
stick with both hands, using his feet

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on the pedals to try to keep the plane in the air for another quarter mile.

"It's gonna be close, old girl. Hang in there for me another couple'a
seconds," he whispered through a dry mouth to his plane.

The F-lll hit the ground, bounced once, skidded slightly to the right,
then began to slow to manageable speed in the center of the runway.

Tommy leaned his head back, breathed a quick prayer of thanks, and let
the air he'd been holding out of his lungs.

262

Lieutenant Commander Johnny Held and Lieutenant Josh Fuentes were in the
lead Apache flying out of Georgi Strigi-nov's 505 Bat, while Lieutenant
Commander Jerry Stringer and Lieutenant Wally Fuller were flying backup
in the second Apache.

Their orders were simple: Find the mercenaries operating under the
command of Field Marshal Bruno Bottger and destroy as many men and as
much equipment as they could. If they managed to down a few helicopters,
all the better.

Their last intel was that the meres were attacking the village of
Valapraiso ninety miles to the south of Durango, where General Ben
Raines and his team were meeting with the head of the Mexican Armed
Forces, General Jose Guerra.

As they flew along the tributaries of the Grande de Santiago, the large
river on the West Coast that sent its smaller branches up near
Valapraiso, they could see smoke and flashes of light as the meres
systematically destroyed the meager defenses of the small town.

"Whirlybird One to Whirlybird Two," Held said to Stringer over the
ship-to-ship radio. "Looks like the bad guys are having some fun down
there, pickin' on the smaller boys."

"Yeah," Stringer answered. "Let's go kick some sand in their faces and
teach them some manners, American style."

"Roger that," Held said. "Drop your socks and grab your cocks, boys,
we're goin' downtown!"

The two Apaches separated slightly, put their noses down

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for increased speed, and rushed toward the conflagration below. Held
could see a couple of small black dots flitting around the outskirts of
the town, and knew them to be either Kiowas or Defenders. It was too far
to tell which they might be, but it really didn't matter too much, for
the Apache outclassed both of them in combat by a large margin.

Deciding to save his 2.75-inch rockets for the big boys, the Chinooks he
knew must be in the area, Held fingered the trigger on his 30mm Chain
Gun. The Chain Gun was a hellish instrument that could fire 30mm slugs
so fast it sounded like a steady whine instead of the usual chatter of a
machine-gun.

One of the enemy helicopters, a Kiowa, must have seen them coming, for
it turned its back and headed off in full retreat.

"Smart boy," Held said to his copilot, Josh Fuentes, who was busy
checking the area for other targets or risks.

The second helicopter, a McDonnell Douglas OH-6 Defender, made the
mistake of turning to face the Apache and letting go with a stream of
20mm shells from its Minigun while the Apache was still far out of range.

"That boy's got more balls than brains," Josh said. "The Defender may be
good against tanks and ground installations, but it's not worth spit as
an attack chopper."

"He's gonna find that out in about twenty seconds," Held said as he
locked his target acquisition computer sights on the smaller helicopter
and pulled the trigger on the Chain Gun.

The Defender seemed to just disintegrate under the onslaught of the
first burst of 30mm shells, breaking into pieces too small to see, then
exploding in a fireball of av-gas and ammunition.

Without slowing his descent, Held asked, "Next target?"

Josh keyed his computer and said, "Half-track personnel carrier at three
o'clock low, off to the right. It's already keyed into right-pod rocket
launcher."

"Roger," Held said, and fingered the trigger to the right-hand-side
rocket launcher.

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A 2.75-inch rocket shot from under the right turbine engine, and curved
in a gentle arc downward toward a large truck with tank threads on its
rear part, full of soldiers. As the rocket flared on its way down, Held
could see a couple of men try to jump out of the vehicle. They were in
midair when the rocket buried its nose in the engine compartment of the
truck and exploded, sending crumpled, blackened metal and bits and
pieces of soldiers' bodies flying through the air.

"Incoming!" Josh hollered as his computer picked up the trail of a
handheld GTA SAM missile that'd been fired at them by one of the soldiers.

Without thinking, acting on reflex since he had only seconds to react,
Held pulled up on the collective, jerked the throttle stick to the side,
and pumped his feet on the pedals, sending the Apache in a sideways,
leaning dive toward the ground. The SAM passed by less than thirty feet
from the right turbine, too close to turn toward the heat.

In one continuous move, Held bent the Apache's nose back around and
arrowed toward the ground, his finger holding the trigger of the Chain
Gun down, strafing the thousands of troops scattering like stampeded
cattle before him.

A 30mm bullet makes quite a mess of human flesh, and the soldiers below
were smashed and torn asunder by the fusillade of bullets that rained
down on them like hail from hell, killing hundreds of men in the first pass.

A few soldiers tried to fire their machine-guns at the Apache, but it
was like trying to hit a hawk with a slingshot, and none of the bullets
made contact as Held pulled up out of his dive and prepared for another
pass.

"Target?" he asked in a calm voice, as if this were just another day at
the office.

"There's a pair of Chinooks over to the left," Josh said calmly. "Looks
like they're trying to warm up their engines for a fast getaway."

"Dial 'em in and let's get the bastards," Held said.

265

Josh's fingers flew over the keyboard to his target acquisition
computer, and seconds later he said, "Done."

Held lined up the nose of the Apache, and pulled back on the collective
to cause it to hover momentarily. Just as he tapped the fire button on
the rocket launcher, one of the Chi-nooks lifted off, the heavy
helicopter trying to get airborne and escape its fate.

The first rocket hit the Chinook on the ground, exploding it in a giant
fireball, the metal of its fuselage collapsing around the troops that
had been trying to clamber on board and killing all in a split second.

The second Chinook was about thirty feet off the ground and just
beginning its turn when the 2.75-inch rocket entered its turbine exhaust
port, blowing the engine off the machine.

The Chinook spun wildly, out of control, and smashed to the ground,
first flattening out like a giant pancake. Then it too exploded, sending
flames and smoke a hundred feet into the air.

Stringer and Fuller were equally busy. Stringer had elected to focus his
attack on the troops on the outskirts of the town. He aimed the nose of
his Apache at several HumVees and smaller jeeps that were using their
pole-mounted fifty-caliber machine guns to rake the buildings of
Valapraiso with murderous fire.

When their gunners saw the Apache coming at them out of the sun, they
swiveled their guns upward and continued to fire, trying desperately to
down the approaching aircraft.

It was no use. The Chain Gun mounted under the Apache's nose exploded
into action, sending thousands of rounds of 30mm shells at the vehicles.

Two HumVees disintegrated under the impact, exploding and killing all
the men within a hundred yards of their location as molten, twisted
metal acted like shrapnel from a dozen hand grenades and scythed through
them like a cultivator through a field of wheat, mowing them down and
killing them instantly.

One of the jeeps took off in a screeching turn, trying to

266

escape the fire, but the tracers of the Chain Gun followed it, stitching
a path up the road until they intersected with the jeep and blew it
twenty feet into the air, its rubber tires on fire and sending out
thick, black clouds of smoke.

By now, the mercenaries were in full retreat, running in packs and
individually as fast as they could away from the town. Some even dove
into the rivers that ran near the city limits and tried to hide in the
slowly moving waters.

With most of the heavy equipment either abandoned or destroyed, the two
Apaches flitted back and forth, firing their Chain Guns at the running
men, killing hundreds as they tried to make their escape.

Soon, most of the larger groups of men were either dead or had
dispersed, dropping their weapons and hightailisg it toward the sparse
jungles in the distance, trying to get under cover and away from the
Angels of Death flying overhead.

"Whirlybird Two, come in," Held said, pulling his Apache away from the
fleeing soldiers and back toward town.

"Whirlybird Two here," Stringer replied. "What do you think, Johnny? We
done enough damage for the time being?"

"Roger that, Jerry. You stand guard up here for a while in case that
Kiowa decides to come back and fight. I'm gonna land and see if there
are any defenders left in the town to fight."

"That Kiowa won't come back, Johnny, not unless he's got shit for
brains, but I'll keep an eye out just in case."

Johnny Held landed his Apache, leaving Josh at the controls in case he
needed to take off in a hurry, while he walked toward the destroyed
buildings of Valapraiso.

Within ten minutes, bedraggled Mexican soldiers and townspeople began to
come out of basements and the rubble of collapsed buildings from all
across the town.

Held stood with his hands on his hips until a contingent of soldiers,
led by a man with sergeant's stripes on his uniform, walked up to him.

267

The sergeant saluted smartly, even though blood from two wounds on his
left arm was dripping onto the ground.

"Sergeant Raul Dominguez, sir," he said.

"You the commanding officer here, Raul?" Johnny said, sticking out his
hand to shake.

"Yes, sir, I am now. Both our lieutenants were killed in the attack."

Johnny looked around. Dominguez had perhaps sixty or seventy men left
who looked like they were well enough to fight.

"Why don't you get your men to round up the weapons and ammunition, and
a couple of those jeeps over there with the fifty-calibers on 'em?" he
asked. "My partner and I will stay aloft and cover you until you're back
in the town and get your defenses set back up."

"Yes, sir," Dominguez said. Then he turned and barked orders in rapid
Spanish to his men, who scattered and began to pick up machine guns,
grenades, and ammunition boxes that were lying among the dead and
wounded mercenaries.

Dominguez glanced around. "What shall I do with the wounded enemies,
sir?" he asked.

"You got enough men to play nursemaid to a bunch of mercenaries that
were doin' their best to kill you an hour ago?" Held asked.

"Uh, now that you mention it, sir, I don't."

"Then leave 'em," Held said. "Buzzards gotta eat too."

Dominguez grinned, and Held knew that was the answer he'd wanted, and
probably what he would have done no matter what Held had advised. The
Mexican Army was not known for its humanitarian instincts in the best of
times.

"Yes, sir."

"We'll hang around until we see your men are all safely back in town.
Then we gotta split. Gettin' kinda low on go-juice," Held said.

"You think they'll be back, sir?" Dominguez asked, glancing in the
direction the soldiers had taken when they ran off.

268

Held shook his head. "Not today, but they'll get reinforcements and
probably hit you again tomorrow or the next day."

"Can we expect more help from you americanos?" Dom-inguez asked.

Held shrugged. "Yeah, our battalion should be well within distance to
help out by tomorrow, but you fellows look like you were doin' all right
on your own. Now that you got plenty of ammo and time to dig in, I don't
think you're gonna have any problems."

Dominguez saluted again, then turned to make sure his men were thorough
in picking through the weapons and ammunition scattered around the
battlefield.

269

It was almost full dark by the time the Kiowa helicopter that had fled
the battle at Valapraiso landed outside the Presidential Palace at
Mexico City.

The pilot and copilot were brought to the conference room on the third
floor, where Bruno Bottger and Perro Loco and their entourages were
having a strategy meeting.

Bottger and Loco sat side by side, glaring across the desk at the tired,
sweaty men who stood before them, their heads hanging down.

"Give us your report," Bottger ordered harshly.

"We were about to enter the town, Field Marshal, when two Apache
helicopters came at us from the north," said the pilot.

"They had the SUSA markings on them, Herr Bottger," the copilot added.

Bottger glanced at Loco, then back at the two men. "And you didn't stay
to fight?" he asked, scorn dripping from his tongue.

The pilot shook his head. "No, sir. The Kiowa is no match for one
Apache, much less two. The pilot of the Defender tried to fight them,
and was blown out of the sky before he could get a shot off."

"It appears the dead man was much braver than you two," Bottger said,
his face turning red.

"I thought it more important to save the helicopter, sir," the pilot
said, standing up straight. "I am not afraid to die, but to

270

throw my life away when I have no chance would be counterproductive to
our efforts to win this war."

Sergei Bergman leaned forward to speak to Bottger. "He is correct, Field
Marshal. The Kiowas, and the men with the know-how to pilot them, are
too valuable to us to lose unnecessarily."

Bottger took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. "Perhaps you
are right, Sergei."

He glanced back at the two pilots. "Get yourselves cleaned up and get
something to eat. We will need you again in the morning."

"Yes, sir," the two men said in unison, and saluted before turning to
leave, much relieved they hadn't been shot out of hand.

After they were gone, Bottger referred to a radio report from the field.
"It appears the attack on Valapraiso was completely routed by the
arrival of the American warships."

Loco nodded. "The same thing happened to my men at Ciudad de Valles.
General Enrique Gonzalez states he barely escaped with his life and that
most of his men are either dead or wounded. He desires immediate
reinforcements and better air cover."

"Looks like Ben Raines's men have arrived a bit sooner than we expected.
This is gonna complicate matters."

Sergei Bergman nodded his agreement. "Yes. It means it will be extremely
difficult to occupy the remainder of Mexico in the time frame we first
planned."

Bottger thumbed through the intel reports in front of him. "It seems a
full battalion of troops has been sent to defend Tampico, and a full
battalion to defend Durango."

"Our men will play hell trying to defeat battalions equipped as well as
those of the Americans are," Paco Valdez said from his seat next to Loco.

Loco nodded. "I do not believe it can be done as long as our forces are
divided."

"I agree," Bottger said, his eyes fixed on a map of Mexico.

271

271

"I propose we unify our forces and concentrate on Durango. If I send my
men straight from Guadalajara toward Durango, skirting the mountains to
the west of the city, they can be there in two days' time." He cut his
eyes to the other side of the map. "And if you order your men that are
south of Tampico to strike directly west, we might be able to catch
Durango in a pincer movement between our two forces."

Loco leaned over to look at the map. "I see. Together, we vastly
outnumber one battalion. If we strike fast enough by having our men
travel all during the night and lay low during the day, we might be able
to catch the defenders of Durango off guard."

"We can transport most of the men still here in Mexico City in our
C-130's and land them at Sombrerete, fifty miles southeast of Durango.
There is an old airfield there that will let the transport planes land.
If we time it right, we will then have a three-pronged attack that will
hit Durango at the same time."

Bottger and Loco looked at each other and nodded. "Then that is what we
shall do," Bottger said. He glanced at Sergei Bergman. "Sergei, you and
Mr. Strunk coordinate the troop movements so that the attacks will occur
simultaneously."

Bergman and Strunk nodded and began to gather their papers together.

Sergei knocked on Bottger's bedroom door just before midnight.

"Come in," Bottger said.

"Field Marshal," Bergman said as he entered. "The plan is done and the
orders have been given. The attacks will occur day after tomorrow at dawn."

"There's one more thing we have to do," Bottger said.

"What's that?"

"Tomorrow evening I want you to send three jets loaded with our plague
bombs to the north. One is to let his bombs

272

off over Durango. The other two are to fly as far north as they can get
and drop them as close to the SUSA's southern border as they can."

"But, Field Marshal, they will never get all the way to the SUSA. The
air defenses are too good."

"I know that, but with two divisions of Americans here, and with several
million people inhabiting northern Mexico, it will not take long for the
plague to spread to the SUSA. By the time we've finished with Durango,
the disease should be well established in both the SUSA and Mexico."

"You are aware the plague will devastate not only the Mexicans and
Americans, but Perro Loco's troops as well?"

"Yes, but by then, we will no longer need Senor Loco or his men. Once
the plague has rendered both Mexico and the SUSA impotent, it will only
be a matter of occupying the countries with our mercenaries and
beginning to take them over."

Bergman nodded, smiling. "And soon after the SUSA falls ill, the U.S.
will follow."

Bottger grinned. "Exactly."

After darkness fell the next day, Bottger and Bergman rode out to the
Mexico City airport. Bottger had told Loco he was going to send a couple
of bombers over Durango to see if they could soften the city up by
dropping some bombs from a high altitude.

Loco didn't think much of the plan, but since the planes belonged to
Bottger, there wasn't much he could do about it. Of course, he knew
nothing of the lethal cargo in the bombs the planes carried.

Bottger and Bergman pulled up to the runway in front of the three F-l 11
's. The pilots were standing on the edge of the tarmac awaiting final
instructions.

"Gentlemen," Bottger said, standing in front of them. "You have your
orders. It is imperative that the bombs be dropped

273

as planned. It is not important that you are precise in your targeting.
The bombs are designed to detonate one thousand feet from the ground to
insure maximum spread of the bacteria contained in them."

He pointed to one of the men. "Your target is the city of Durango, or as
close to it as you can get. The most important thing is to release the
bombs if you come under attack, even if you are not over your target."

He glanced at the other two. '1You men are to separate and to head at
maximum altitude and speed toward the southern border of the SUSA. Once
again, at the first sign of interdiction or if you are fired upon by
missiles, release the bombs no matter where you are. Understand?"

The men all nodded. They knew there was little chance of them returning
from this mission, but Bottger had promised each of them huge sums of
money in the event they succeeded, with the money to go to their
families if they died in the attempt.

One after another, the jets taxied up to the end of the runway and took
off, climbing at a steep angle to get as high as they could as fast as
they could.

A Mexican soldier burst into the situation room at the Army base at
Durango where Ben Raines and his team were going over the latest intel
reports with General Guerra and his staff.

The soldier and General Guerra spoke back and forth in rapid Spanish for
a moment, with Guerra's face becoming more and more worried the longer
they spoke.

Ben glanced at Harley Reno. "What's going on, Harley?" he asked.

Harley, who was fluent in Spanish, leaned over and whispered, "That man
is the radar operator of the base. Evidently, he's picked up three
fast-moving blips at high altitude and coming this way from Mexico City.
They'll be over us in less than fifteen minutes."

274

Without waiting for confirmation from Guerra, Ben turned to Corrie, his
radio operator. "Get on the horn, fast, to Georgi Striginov," he said,
"and tell him we need a couple of F-Ill's up here pronto."

Corrie, who was never very far from her compact radio set, rushed to the
back of the room and began the call immediately. Her low voice could be
heard talking urgently to someone, but the words couldn't be made out.

After a couple of minutes, she came back over to Ben. "Georgi's second
in command said he'd get right on it, but there was no way they could be
here in time to beat the bogeys from Mexico City."

Ben turned to Guerra, who was listening. "Can you scramble anything
that'll help us?" he asked.

Guerra shook his head. "The only aircraft we have here right now ready
to go are a couple of old Warthogs."

"How fast are the bogeys moving?" Ben asked the radar operator.

Harley quickly translated the question. When the man answered, he looked
back at Ben. "A lot faster than the Warthogs can handle."

Ben looked at Guerra. "Scramble the Warthogs, General. Maybe they'll get
lucky with one of their guided missiles."

Guerra nodded and picked up the phone on his desk, speaking rapidly into
it. Then he looked up. "They'll be airborne in five minutes. If the jets
coming this way drop low enough, we might have a chance."

"Better sound the air raid siren and get everyone under cover," Ben
said. "If those are F-Ill's coming this way, they can carry over eleven
tons of bombs and still travel twice as fast as a Warthog."

Lieutenant Colonel Jaime Fuentes eased back the stick on his Warthog,
and smiled as it lifted up off the runway at the Durango airfield.
Jaime, who'd been trained at Fort Hood in

275

Texas some ten years ago, lived to fly. To him, the war of aggression by
Perro Loco was a godsend, relieving him of the boredom of the years of
peace when he'd had to beg for air time to keep his skills intact.

He was a gifted flyer who'd finished first in his class, to the surprise
of the college grads he'd beaten from the SUSA schools. Jaime had only a
high school education, but he'd been born to fly and the complex
movements of hands and feet and eyes came like second nature to him.

The Fairchild A-10 Warthog he was flying had few rivals as a
close-support aircraft, carrying both guided missiles and a 30mm cannon
in its nose. Its one drawback was it was very slow, flying at only 380
knots at sea level. The F-lll's it was going up against could fly at
over seven hundred knots, and were better armed.

Jaime didn't think of this as he pulled his beloved Warthog up as fast
as it could go. He was going into battle, and his adrenaline was pumping
and his heart was racing-in short, he was having the time of his life.
Like most pilots, he felt he was the best there was, and counted on his
skills overcoming the natural superiority of the planes he was going up
against.

"Hog One, this is Base, come in," a scratchy voice on his radio sounded.

"Hog One to base," Jaime answered.

"Bogeys are separating," the voice continued. "Only one bogey is headed
this way. The other two are going to pass well to the west of us."

"What is the current altitude of the bogey?" Jaime asked as he stared at
his shipboard radar screen to see if he could pick out the blip that was
to be bis target.

"Fourteen thousand feet and dropping. It's coming in for a bombing run,
Jaime."

"Roger that," Jaime said, imitating the pilots he'd trained with in
Texas, down to the Texas drawl they'd said it with.

He keyed the intercom switch to talk to his copilot and

276

gunner, sitting directly behind him in the double cockpit. "Julio, put
your dancing shoes on, we're fixing to boogie."

"I'm on the dance floor, but I cannot hear the music, com-padre," Julio
responded, their personal code meaning Julio had all weapons systems
ready to go but the target was still out of range.

"Snap off a quick ATA to see if we can get his attention," Jaime
ordered, hoping the air-to-air missile would at least get close enough
to cause the other pilot to change his course away from the base.

"It's too far," Julio protested.

"I know, but lead him like you do the geese when we go hunting at the
lake, Julio. Perhaps the missile's heat seeker will pick him up as he
approaches."

"Si, and perhaps it will miss him, circle, and pick us up instead,"
Julio said, "but here goes nothing."

The Warthog shuddered slightly as a missile jumped from the right-wing
pods and angled off to the left, toward the unknown bogey, which was
still on the very edge of the plane's radar screen.

Jaime shifted course slightly to his left.

"What are you doing?" Julio asked.

"Most pilots are right-handed," Jaime explained. "I'm betting when he
sees the ATA coming at him, he's going to jig to the right. I'm altering
course to cut the distance down and when he jigs, I'm going to be there
waiting for him."

"What if you're wrong and he jigs left?" Julio asked.

"Then we're probably dead," Jaime answered calmly, as if he knew that
wasn't going to happen.

Sure enough, when the blip of the missile closed on the blip of the F-l
11, the plane jigged to the right and downward to get away from the ATA
missile, just as Jaime figured he would.

Jaime's A-10 was already pointed at the F-l 11 as it dove, and he
thumbed the button on the 30mm cannon and simul-

277

taneously fired another ATA, hoping if the other pilot managed to dodge
one, the other would get him.

Several blips appeared on the screen as the ATA missile and machine-gun
bullets arched toward the F- 111.

"He's dropped his bombs," Julio said exuberantly, "well short of the base."

Suddenly, the night sky was lit up by the explosion of several tons of
aircraft above and directly in front of the Warthog.

Cursing, Jaime jerked his stick to the side and put the A-10 in a
slip-sliding dive, trying to avoid the shrapnel-like wreckage of the F-lll.

The windscreen in front of Jaime shattered and his face felt as if it'd
been punched by a heavyweight fighter as pieces of the F-Ill's fuselage
punched through the Plexiglas.

Jaime's head snapped back under the impact and he lost consciousness for
a few seconds. When he came to, Julio's voice was hollering in his ear
over the intercom.

"We're in a spin . . . we're in a spin! Pull up, Jaime, pull up!"

Groggily, with only his instinct to guide him, Jaime's hands and feet
began a delicate dance together to regain control of the aircraft before
it plunged into the desert sands below.

The Warthog leveled out at less than five hundred feet, Julio's voice
saying the Lord's Prayer in Jaime's ears as he finally cleared the blood
out of his eyes and banked back toward the base for a landing.

278

There was jubilation in the war room of the Durango Army base when the
radar operator reported the F-l 11 from Mexico City had been shot down
well short of the base.

While the other men were celebrating the heroism of Jaime Fuentes, who
was in the medical ward having the cuts on his face stitched up, Harley
stood next to the radar operator and continued to question him closely
about what he'd seen.

Harley's face was glum when he came back to Ben to report. "Something
strange about this whole thing, General," he said.

"What's that, Harley?" Ben asked, putting down the glass of wine that
Guerra had passed out on the news of the successful interdiction of the
attacker.

"The radar man says it looked like the F-l 11 dropped his bombs before
he was blown up."

Ben shrugged. "So what? They evidently fell over land that was sparsely
populated."

"That's not what's bothering me, sir," Harley continued. "The radar man
says it looked to him like the bombs exploded at one thousand feet
instead of falling all the way to the ground."

"Shit!" Ben exclaimed. "There's only one type of bomb designed to
detonate in the air like that."

Harley nodded. "Yes, sir. BW bombs."

"That means the other two that're headed toward our southern border are
probably filled with the anthrax bug too," Ben

279

said, "and even if we shoot 'em down, the bug is going to be released
over northern Mexico or the southern SUSA."

"Yes, sir, my thoughts exactly," Harley said.

Ben leaned back in his chair and ran his hands through his hair. "I
guess it's time to tell the general what's going on, and to get Dr. Buck
to ship as much of the vaccine as he can spare down here pronto."

"I'll have Corrie get on the radio to Mike Post at headquarters
immediately, Ben, while you talk to the general," Harley said.

After Ben had explained how Bottger had most probably released a potent
biological weapon over General Guerra's country, they made plans for the
quick distribution of the vaccine to all units of the Mexican Army, to
be followed as rapidly as possible by the vaccination of as many of the
citizens of Mexico as could be gotten to.

"The problem," General Guerra said, a sad look on his face, "is that
this part of Mexico is very rural, with the population spread over many
thousands of acres. It will be almost impossible to vaccinate everyone
before the plague begins to spread."

"You're right, Jose, but that will work in our favor too. The plague is
spread person to person, so if the people are very spread out, fewer of
them will come in contact with those afflicted by the plague. We just
have to get on the radio and TV and newspapers to tell everyone to stay
away from congested areas, like towns and markets."

"I will have my information officers get right on it, Ben, and we will
pray that the vaccine gets here in time to prevent the loss of most of
my Army to sickness."

"Those that do contract the illness can be treated with antibiotics,
which I will also have sent along with the vaccine, Jose."

"Muchas gracias, Ben."

280

At that moment, Harley returned from Corrie's side. She'd been talking
with Mike Post in Louisiana at Ben's headquarters.

"Good news, Ben," he said.

"Tell me," Ben said. "I could use some good news right about now."

"Mike says no problem on the vaccine and antibiotics. They'll be on the
way here by midnight, and should arrive in time to start inoculations
first thing in the morning. He's also sending extra teams of medics to
help with the shots, both in the Army and in the countryside."

"That is good news," Ben said, a look of relief on his face.

"There's more. General Striginov's interceptors were able to shoot down
both of the other bogeys before they reached our border. One went down
near Chihuahua and the other over Monterrey."

"Damn," Ben said, some of the elation leaving his face. "That's good for
us but terrible for the Mexicans. There's going to be tremendous loss of
life before we can get the vaccine down there."

"I know, but it could have been worse," Harley said, "if they'd made it
over Houston or El Paso."

"You're right, Harley. Guess we need to count our blessings."

As they spoke, another man entered the room, a worried look on his face.
After Guerra spoke with him, the general approached Ben.

"Our advance scouts report heavy troop movements to the south."

Ben stared at him. "From the east or the west?" he asked.

"Both," Guerra said shortly. "It appears as if Loco has given up on his
idea of taking Tampico and has coordinated with Bottger to have both
their armies converge on us here at Durango."

"When does it look like they'll arrive?" Ben asked.

281

"Our scouts figure they'll attack at first light tomorrow, or shortly
thereafter."

Ben turned to Corrie. "What's Striginov's ETA here?" he asked.

"He said if he pushes it, he can be here early in the morning with most
of his heavy equipment. The ground troops will be a few hours later."

"Get back on the radio and tell him to push it," Ben said. "Looks like
we're gonna have some visitors by breakfast time."

Claire Osterman called a meeting of her advisory staff for eight o'clock
in the evening. When they arrived, she looked like a cat who'd just
swallowed a canary.

Harlan Millard, Major General Bradley Stevens, Jr., his assistant
Colonel James King, and Herb Knoff all helped themselves to coffee from
a sideboard in her office and took their seats, waiting to see just what
Claire had on her mind.

Stevens and King had been very busy for the past week making sure all of
her troops were moving back from their stations on the borders with the
SUSA, as well as getting medics around to all the battalions to
inoculate the troops against Bruno Bottger's dreaded plague bacteria in
case it was launched.

Claire took her time, letting the suspense build for a while as she
shuffled papers on her desk and fiddled with her coffee, getting it just
right with cream and artificial sweetener. Proud of her new build after
her incarceration of the year before, she was still on a strict diet and
daily workout regimen.

Finally, Stevens could stand it no longer. "Madame President, you called
us here for a reason?"

"Yes, Brad," she said sweetly. "I have here a collection of reports from
my spies in Perro Loco's army, as well as some news reports from
reporters in the SUSA who are ... shall we say, sympathetic to our cause?"

282

Stevens glanced at Millard and King. He'd heard nothing new in his daily
intel reports that would justify such a meeting.

"And?" he asked.

"It seems that Ben Raines and some of his closest associates are down in
Durango, Mexico, coordinating the fallback and consolidation of the
Mexican Army down there."

"So?" Stevens asked, wondering what bee was in Claire's bonnet now.

"Perro Loco and Bruno Bottger both suffered severe setbacks in their
last offensive, both due in part to the interference of Raines in
Mexico's affairs."

Stevens had to force himself to keep his mouth shut about Claire railing
against Raines for interfering in Mexico in a war that was the direct
result of some meddling of her own.

"Perro Loco and Bottger are now working in concert and are forming a
huge offensive against Durango, coming at the city from both sides with
everything they have. It's going to be a do-or-die effort, with maximum
effort put forth to crush the Mexican defenders. What they don't know,
but I do, is that Raines has at least two battalions of his own coming
to his aid. With that setup, who do you think will emerge victorious in
the upcoming battle for Durango?" she asked, staring at Stevens and King.

Stevens shrugged, being careful to choose words that would not set
Claire off. He didn't dare give Raines and his Army too much praise,
though he knew Loco's ill-trained troops and Bottger's hired mercenaries
couldn't stand against the highly trained and very loyal troops under
Raines's command. "I'd have to give the edge to Raines and the
Mexicans," he finally said. "They're much better equipped and the
Mexicans are fighting on their home ground, which always counts for
something."

King nodded his agreement. "Me too. I'd be surprised if Loco or Bottger
come out of the battle with enough troops to ever be a serious force again."

"My thoughts exactly," Claire said, surprising everyone with

283

her agreement. "And, evidently, Bruno Bottger knows he doesn't stand a
chance with conventional warfare, because my news sources inform me that
three jets bearing BW bombs were launched last evening."

"What?" Stevens said, sitting forward in his chair.

Claire nodded. "That's correct. Bottger has finally launched a BW attack
against both Mexico and the SUSA, though his bombers only got as far as
Chihuahua and Monterrey before they were forced to drop their plague
bombs prematurely."

"Jesus," Harlan Millard said as he took a handkerchief out of his pocket
and wiped his face. "It's a good thing Raines shared their vaccine with
us, or we'd be facing death and destruction on a major scale."

"Yes, it is," Claire said, still smiling for an unknown reason. "Which
brings me to the point of tonight's meeting. Now that the plague is
afoot, Mexico is going to be devastated. Even if the SUSA manages to get
the vaccine down there, it's going to take a couple of weeks before it's
effective. In the meantime, thousands, perhaps millions of Mexicans are
going to be infected."

"Do you want us to send some of our medical teams down there?" Millard
asked.

Claire looked at him as if he had suddenly gone crazy. "Not exactly,"
she said. "It appears to me that Ben Raines is going to be extremely
busy for the next few weeks, perhaps even months. Even if he wins the
upcoming battle for Durango, he's then going to be forced to help the
Mexicans treat all their plague-infected peons."

Stevens leaned back in his chair and bit his lip. He had a feeling he
knew where this was going.

Claire didn't disappoint him. "I think this would be a perfect time to
reassess our decision to pull our troops back from the borders with the
SUSA. Raines has already pulled his battalions back, and even sent some
of them south to help out on the Mexican border. If we reversed our
troop movements and pressed on past the borders, I think it would take
Raines by

284

surprise and by the time he could react, we'd have taken control of
quite a bit of his territory."

"But, Claire," Millard said, "we can't do that. You said yourself, you
gave Raines your word you would pull our troops back and cease the
hostilities if he provided us with the anthrax vaccine against Bottger's
biological weapons."

"Harlan, you're such a wimp!" Claire said with sudden fervor. "Do you
really think I consider myself bound by a promise given under duress?
That son of a bitch Raines blackmailed me into promising to pull our
troops back, and I don't consider blackmail an honorable way to conduct
affairs of state."

Stevens glanced at King and took a deep breath. "Madame President, may I
remind you we are rather far along in the pullback process? Our troops
are already loaded up, and most have already started to move away from
the borders."

"All the better," Claire said, slamming her hand down on her desktop.
"If the troops are already loaded up, then all it will take is an order
from you for them to turn around and head them back the way they came.
The only difference this time is that they won't stop at the borders,
but will continue on as far as they can, smashing the token resistance
along the way."

"But, Madame President . . ." Stevens began.

"General Stevens," Claire interrupted, her voice as harsh and as hard as
he'd ever heard it, "if you are unwilling to give the order, or to
support it with all your heart, I am sure I can find another officer who
is not afraid to do as I say."

Stevens was defeated and he knew it. "No, ma'am. I'll give the orders
immediately."

"And I can count on the full support of you and your other commanding
officers in this offensive?" she asked, her eyes dangerously dark.

"Yes, ma'am. You have my word on it, as an officer and a gentleman."

She smiled for the first time in several minutes. "And if

285

you fail me, Brad, I promise you I'll have your head on it. Understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said, putting his hat on and standing up. He gave her a
quick salute and left the room, followed closely by Colonel King.

Harlan Millard stood up too. "Claire, once again, I must register my
protest. I think you are making a mistake."

"Harlan," Claire said softly, "get your candy ass out of here. I'll deal
with you later."

Harlan quickly exited the room without looking back.

Claire turned to Herb, who hadn't said a word during the entire meeting.

"Well, what do you think, Herb?" she asked.

"I think you're a hell of a lady, and that you're gonna kick ass and
take names this time," he said.

She stared into his eyes and slowly began to unbutton her blouse. "I
love it when you talk like that," she said, letting her glance slide
toward her bedroom door.

Herb stood up and walked over to stand behind her desk chair. He leaned
over and let both his hands slide over her shoulders and down her chest
to cup her breasts under her brassiere.

"Why don't you show me how much you love it?" he said in a low, husky
voice, kneading her breasts with his hands until they ached and made her
heart race and her mouth turn dry.

She stood up and walked toward the door, glancing back over her shoulder
at him seductively.

"I think I will," she said, as she stepped out of her dress and let her
blouse slide off her shoulders.

As he followed her through the door, Herb reached up and flipped the
light switch off.

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Mike Post couldn't believe the reports coming in from his intel sources
across the SUSA. Claire Osterman had reversed her orders and her troops
were now headed back toward their borders at speed.

He got on the radio to Jackie Malone, who was cooling her heels at the
Air National Guard base at Peoria, Illinois.

"Malone here," Jackie said into the radio.

"Jackie, this is Mike Post at headquarters."

"Mike, when can I get out of this godforsaken place?" Jackie asked, her
voice heavy with disgust. "I'm tired of sitting on my ... well, sitting
around doing nothing while Striginov and McGowen are having all the fun
down in Mexico."

"That's why I called, Jackie," Mike said.

"You mean I'm getting my walking orders?" she asked hopefully.

"Not exactly. I've just learned Claire Osterman has changed her orders
about withdrawing her troops. She's now got them headed back to attack
our borders."

"That bitch!" Jackie said. "I hope Ben kicks her ass from here to there."

"There's a slight problem with that, Jackie," Mike said. "Ben made the
mistake of trusting her, so he's pulled most of our battalions down
south to help with the Mexican campaign and to give shots to the Mexican
citizens."

"You mean the borders are unguarded?" she asked.

"Exactly. Except for token forces, they're completely bare.

287

They might be able to hold out for a day or two, but unless something is
done, and done quickly, we're liable to lose a couple of states to the U.S."

"What can I do?" Jackie asked. "I've only got a couple of hundred men up
here. Even if you pull us out, we won't be much help against an entire
army."

"I've got an idea, if you're up for it," Mike said.

"Shoot."

"If you can infiltrate Osterman's base there at Indianapolis, perhaps
you can talk some sense into her. They'll have all their attention on
their offensives against us down south, so the base itself should be at
minimum security. They think Ben's too busy down in Mexico to try
anything as foolish as attacking her main base."

Jackie didn't answer while she thought about it for a minute. It could
be done, she supposed, especially since the troops with her were some of
the best scouts in the SUSA's Armed Forces. She keyed the mike. "Got
you, Mike. We'll head that way right now. Within a few hours we'll know
if it's possible for us to take the base."

"Good luck, Jackie," Mike said. "Call me as soon as you know anything.
Meanwhile, I'll do what I can to shore up our defenses along the border."

Jackie knew they'd never make it to the base by aircraft. Since their
last attack, the radars had been manned much more diligently. She called
her men together and gave them their assignments.

Within hours, every vehicle capable of carrying more than a few men had
been rounded up in Peoria and the surrounding towns. Jackie led the way
in a large Chevrolet Suburban, with the other two hundred men in over a
hundred vehicles of assorted makes and models in a long caravan down
Highway 74 south toward Indianapolis. They had almost two hundred miles
to travel and they weren't wasting any time.

288

* * *

It was two in the morning when Jackie pulled to the side of the road
less than two miles from Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis.

She had her men spread out and begin to make their way toward the base.
On the northwest quadrant of the base, they came to a long expanse of
ten-foot-high wire fence with razor wire curled along the top.

Jackie stepped to the side, and two of her men cut through the fence
with wire cutters, leaving a fifteen-foot-wide swath through the fence.

Once inside, Jackie gave quick instructions. One-fourth of the men were
assigned to take out the barracks and take the soldiers not on duty
prisoner. Half the men were assigned to infiltrate the hangars and guard
posts and other administrative buildings to take care of the men on
night duty and to gain control of the airplanes and other heavy
equipment for future use.

Jackie took the remaining twenty-five scouts with her and made her way
toward Claire Osterman's headquarters building, sure it would be the
most heavily guarded on the base considering Claire's noted paranoia
about her personal safety.

Jackie had warned her men to use their assault knives as much as
possible, because any firing of weapons would warn the base it was under
attack and would seriously jeopardize their efforts at a complete takeover.

There were guards posted every twenty feet around Osterman's personal
quarters, which also served as her office during the day.

Jackie pointed to seven men, who unsheathed their K-Bar assault knives
and began to crawl toward the building on their bellies.

Fifteen minutes later, a soft whistle sounded-the signal the outside
guards had been taken out. Jackie and the rest of her team of scouts
stood up and walked toward the building. So

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far, there had been not the slightest sign anything was wrong on the
base, in spite of the fact that Jackie knew at least half of it had been
taken over by now.

Jerry Littletree, a Sioux Indian descendant, stepped out of the
darkness, wiping the blade of his K-Bar off on his pants leg. "The door
into the building is right there, ma'am," he said, pointing to his left,
where a crumpled body could be seen in front of a steel door.

"You didn't scalp him, did you?" Jackie asked with a smile.

Littletree's expression didn't change. "Not yet," he answered, and
Jackie shivered, not knowing if he too was teasing or not.

When she got to the door, Littletree handed her a key he'd taken off the
night guard. "Be careful, ma'am," he said. "We've taken care of the
outside guards, but there're sure to be some on the inside as well."

Jackie reached into her backpack and took out a spray can. Then she put
the key in the lock and eased the door open.

Slipping inside, she quickly stepped to the corner and sprayed paint
over the lens of the camera hung on the wall there.

She took her Beretta 9mm pistol out of her holster and screwed a
silencer onto the barrel, then proceeded up the staircase, her men
following directly behind her. She held out her hand at the top of the
stairs, and snuck a look around the corner down the corridor.

A lone man was sitting at a bank of video monitors. As she watched, he
banged on the side of one of the screens, cursing quietly to himself.
When the picture remained black, he picked up a phone and started to dial.

Jackie stepped out into the corridor, her pistol hanging by her side,
and walked toward the man, whistling softly to herself as she approached
him.

He stopped dialing and looked up, his eyebrows raising in question. "Who
the hell are you?" he asked, hanging up the phone and reaching for a
holster on his waist.

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"Put your hands up, please," Jackie said quietly.

"The hell with you!" the man said harshly, and half rose from his chair,
drawing his gun.

Jackie extended her arm straight out and fired, her gun making a phftt
sound no louder than a soft cough.

The guard's head snapped back as a tiny hole appeared in his forehead
and blood and brains exploded out the back of his skull to paint on the
wall a grisly portrait of death. His dead body flopped back into his
chair and he slumped forward, his head landing with a thump on his desk.

Jackie gave a low whistle and her men poured into the corridor behind
her. "Spread out and find me Osterman's quarters, then go in every door
and secure whoever's in the other rooms," she ordered.

Minutes later, a sergeant motioned her down the corridor and around a
corner to a door marked president of the UNITED STATES.

Jackie tried the doorknob. It was locked, so she pulled her K-Bar, stuck
the hardened steel point in the keyhole, and twisted. The knife cut
through the softer metal of the door as if it were made of butter, and
the door swung open.

Jackie raised her Beretta and stepped into Claire's office, swinging her
arm around to cover the entire room in one sweep. It was empty, with
only a low-wattage night-light on over in a corner.

She turned to the sergeant behind her and motioned to the coffee machine
on a side table. "Make us some coffee, would you, Steve?" she asked. "I
have a feeling it's gonna be a long night."

"Yes, ma'am," the sergeant said.

Jackie stepped to a door on a side wall and eased it open, pointing her
Beretta before her as she walked into the room.

The only light was from a wall clock, which cast a soft light over
Claire Osterman's bedroom. Two figures could be seen intertwined, lying
on a large bed, half covered with rumpled covers.

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Herb Knoff was spooned up against Claire's back, his arm draped over her
with his hand cupping her breast. Both of them were completely nude.

Jackie smiled and holstered her Beretta. "How cute," she whispered to
the men standing behind her. She reached over and snapped on a light
while simultaneously jerking the covers from the bed.

Osterman and Knoff jerked upright, covering their eyes against the harsh
light.

"What the hell's the meaning of this?" Claire yelled, sitting up in bed
and trying to cover her nakedness and at the same time shield her eyes
with her hand.

Knoff rolled quickly to the side and reached for his side arm on the
bedside table, only to stop when one of the scouts cocked his M-16 with
a loud metallic snap and said, "Uh-uh, podna."

Herb returned to his position next to Claire while the scout picked up
the pistol and put it in his pocket.

Regaining some of her composure, Claire glared at Jackie, who was
obviously in charge. "Who are you and what is the meaning of this
intrusion?" she asked sharply.

"I'm Jackie Malone, commander of the 512 Battalion of the SUSA's Armed
Forces," Jackie said.

"What do you want?" Claire asked, glancing at Herb as he put both his
hands over his crotch.

"We need to talk, Claire," Jackie said, taking a seat in an easy chair
across the room from the bed.

"May I put some clothes on?" Claire asked, reaching for a robe on the
side of the bed.

"No, I think not," Jackie said, with just a trace of maliciousness in
her tone. "You're fine just the way you are."

Claire looked around at the men with Jackie, who were openly ogling her
naked body. "Then could you ask those men to leave the room?"

Jackie shook her head. "Why? From what I've heard, they're

292

only a few more in a long line of men who've seen you naked, Claire."

Claire leaned back against her headboard and crossed her arms under her
breasts, her face defiant. "All right then, get on with it."

"First of all, let me clarify your position, Madame President," Jackie
said. "Your base here is under my complete control, and all of your men
are either dead or have been taken prisoner."

For the first time, Claire's eyes seemed to show some fear. This was
something she hadn't been expecting. "Go on."

The sergeant stuck his head in the door from the other room. "Coffee's
ready, Jackie."

Jackie motioned to Claire. "Would you and . . . your friend like a cup?"
she asked.

Herb shook his head. Claire said, as cool as a cucumber, "Yes, please.
With cream and Sweet 'n Low."

Jackie glanced at the sergeant. "Two cups, please, Steve. Make mine black."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, and disappeared back through the door.

"To continue," Jackie said to Claire, "we understand you've gone back on
your word to General Raines and have begun to reposition your troops
along our border."

"You are misinformed, Ms. Malone," Claire said. "My troops are merely
undergoing training exercises."

Jackie shook her head. "You know, Claire," she said, deliberately using
Claire's first name, "as much as you lie, one would think you'd be
better at it. Our intel is definite. You plan to attack the SUSA within
twenty-four hours."

Claire shrugged, but didn't speak. Her eyes glared hatred at Jackie.

Jackie waited while the sergeant handed her and Claire their cups of
coffee. She took a sip. "Ummm, good coffee," she said.

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"I'm glad you like it," Claire said. "If I thought you were going to
survive this little intrusion, I'd send you some."

Jackie smiled. "Oh, I'll survive, Claire. It's only your fate that's in
question here tonight."

Claire's eyes widened and her hand shook slightly as she took a drink of
her coffee, the only signs she gave that Jackie's words scared her.

"Now, here's the deal," Jackie continued. "If you get on the radio right
now and call off your attack, and once again recall your troops, you may
... I say may ... get out of this situation alive."

"And if I don't?" Claire said with false bravado.

Jackie shrugged. "Then, first you're going to watch what happens to your
little teddy bear there," she said, pointing her head at Herb, whose
face paled at the thought of his fate, "and then we'll see just how much
pain you can stand before you change your mind."

"I don't believe you'd dare torture a sitting president of the United
States," Claire said.

Jackie looked over at the group of men with her. Then she noticed
something that made her stomach crawl. She smiled grimly. "Jerry, would
you step forward, please?"

Jerry Littletree stepped from the rear of the group to stand before
Claire's bed. A bloody scalp was hanging from his belt and his trousers
were stained with blood from his K-Bar. "Jerry Littletree here is a
Sioux Indian, Claire," Jackie said, watching Claire's eyes fall to the
scalp hanging from Little-tree's belt. "I don't know how much history
you know, Claire, but white settlers used to save a bullet for their
womenfolk rather than let them fall into the hands of the Sioux. If you
continue to refuse to give the order to pull your troops back, I'm going
to let Jerry show you what they were afraid of."

"You wouldn't dare!" Claire said, shrinking back against the headboard.

"Jerry," Jackie said, leaning back in her chair and continuing to sip
her coffee.

294

Littletree grinned savagely and pulled his bloody K-Bar from its
scabbard. He stepped toward the bed.

"Claire, for God's sake!" Herb almost screamed, pulling his legs up and
crossing them over his privates.

Claire held out her hands. "All right, all right. Call that savage off!"

Littletree looked disappointed as he stepped back among the men around
the bed, but he kept his knife out and ran his finger along the blade,
staring at Claire through dark eyes.

"Steve, get the radio room on the phone," Jackie said, "and have them
transfer the call in here."

A few minutes later, the phone on Claire's bedside table rang and she
picked it up.

"Give the man on the phone instructions on how to contact whoever is in
charge of your Army," Jackie said, "and if you make a mistake, or happen
to say the wrong thing, I won't call Littletree off again."

After Claire had gotten in touch with Stevens and explained that she'd
again changed her mind, she told him to call back the troops and have
them stand down. After listening to him argue for a few seconds, she
screamed into the phone, "This is not a matter for discussion, General
Stevens. Either do it right now or face a court-martial and firing squad
in the morning." Then she slammed the phone down.

"Are you satisfied now?" Claire asked, again trying to cover her breasts
with her arms.

"No, but I'll be satisfied when we get reports the troops are in fact
gone from our borders," Jackie said. Then she turned to the sergeant.
"Steve, round up the men and have them get a C-130 ready for us. We're
going home."

"What about her?" he asked, inclining his head toward Claire.

"She's going to ride with us until we're sure she's keeping

295

her word this time. If the troops are still gone when we get home, we'll
let one of her pilots bring her back."

"And I'm supposed to believe that?" Claire asked.

Jackie shrugged. "Believe what you want, 'cause you really don't have
much of a choice in the matter. My orders were to stop the attack on our
borders, not to kill you." She grinned. "Otherwise, you'd already be dead."

296

When the C-130 airplane carrying Claire Osterman, Herb Knoff, a U.S.
pilot, and Jackie Malone and her band of scouts began its final descent
over Base One in Louisiana, Jackie walked over to where Claire and Herb
and the pilot sat on the metal benches along the side of the aircraft.

Jackie stared down at Claire and Herb, clad only in military style
overcoats to cover their nakedness.

"I have a few things to say to you before we land, Claire," Jackie said
in a low voice.

"I think you've said quite enough, Ms. Malone," Claire said in a haughty
voice, having regained some of her confidence now that she knew she
wasn't going to be killed or kept as a prisoner of war.

"No," Jackie said, shaking her head, "I don't think I have. I think
you're planning on trying to go back on your word again, as soon as
you're back at your base."

Claire didn't speak, but just stared up into Jackie's eyes.

"I'd like to advise you not to do that, Claire," Jackie said, drawing
her K-Bar assault knife.

Herb's eyes widened, and he moved over a bit on the metal seat to
distance himself from whatever was about to happen.

Jackie bent down and put her face close to Claire's. "You really should
keep your word this time, Claire, because, you see, I own you. I can get
to you any time I want to. President Lincoln, the Kennedy brothers, and
President Reagan proved that there is no one so guarded they can't be
gotten to if some-

297

one has the will to do it. Look deep in my eyes, Claire, and realize I
have the will and the skill to take you out if you go back on your word
this time."

Claire's face paled as she realized this woman was crazy enough to do
just that.

"Now," Jackie continued when she saw she had Claire's full attention,
"I'm from Texas, and we have a habit of marking things we own, like
cattle and sheep. But since I don't have a branding iron handy, I'm
gonna do the next best thing."

In a lightning-quick motion, Jackie flicked the knife at Claire's head,
cutting a small V-shaped notch in the top of her right ear.

"That's called notching, dear," Jackie explained as Claire gave a short
scream and grabbed her bleeding ear. "It's mainly used on cattle, but in
your case, I made an exception. Now, every time you look in a mirror,
you'll think of me and what will happen to you if you piss me off."

Jackie wiped the point of her knife on Herb's coat, put it back in its
scabbard, and strolled back to her seat just as the C-130 touched down
for a landing.

Fifteen minutes later, the plane took off again and the pilot made a
sweeping turn to the north, heading back to Indianapolis.

Herb sat in the back with Claire, holding her tight against his chest
while she sobbed.

"Don't worry, Claire," he said in a soothing voice. "As soon as we get
back you can countermand your order to pull the troops back."

She pulled away from him and stared at him, her eyes wild. "Are you
crazy?" she almost shouted. "I'll do no such thing."

"You're not afraid of what that bitch said, are you?" Herb asked.

"You didn't see her eyes, Herb. She meant every word of what she said."

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"But we can protect you. . . ." he began.

Claire shook her head back and forth. "No ... no, I don't think anyone
could protect me from that . . . woman. She's a demon!"

As dawn lightened the skies to the east, Raines and his team took their
places in one of the buildings of the base at Durango. Guerra had his
troops spread out along a perimeter spreading in a wide semicircle
facing both east and west. The base was protected to the north by a wide
river that would prevent any organized motorized attack from that direction.

Bulldozers had worked throughout the night to build berms, high dirt
walls, around the base. The troops were arrayed behind these berms with
fifty-caliber machine guns spaced evenly along the entire length of the
wall of earth.

Snipers, fitted with Heckler and Koch sniper rifles, were placed on the
roofs of all the buildings, with orders to concentrate their fire on
officers and drivers of any vehicles they could target.

Twenty-millimeter antiaircraft machine guns were stationed on all four
quadrants of the base to help keep the helicopters and gunships away
from the troops as much as possible.

Ben and General Guerra had done all they could until Georgi Striginov
and his Bat 505 arrived to help. Now they just had to hold the enemy off
until the cavalry arrived.

As the sun peeked over the horizon, fingers of light illuminated
low-lying clouds in the sky with an orange and yellow glow.

Ben glanced over the wall around the roof he and his team were on and
said, "Should be any minute now."

Seconds later a whistling drone could be heard and mortar rounds began
falling on the grounds of the base. Explosions threw up dirt and dust as
the rounds pockmarked the hard-packed dirt of the compound. Guerra and
Ben had told the soldiers to hold their fire until the enemy was close,
but some

299

of the Mexicans, excited by the sound and fury of the explosions, began
to fire their weapons at shadows.

Suddenly, on the horizon, thousands of enemy troops could be seen
beginning their advance, walking alongside tanks, halftracks, armored
personnel carriers, and HumVees and old-style jeeps.

Simultaneously with the appearance of the troops, shadowy shapes flitted
overhead, coming in low and fast, as Kiowas, Defenders, and even a
couple of older-model Cobra helicopters buzzed the base, their machine
guns blazing a trail of death toward the defending Mexican troops behind
their earthen walls.

Harley had given up his SPAS shotgun for a Browning automatic rifle,
which he placed on a tripod on the wall around the roof, a belt of
ammunition trailing down to an ammunition box at his feet. He squatted
and aimed at one of the Defenders as it made a pass. The BAR danced and
jittered in his hands as he pulled the trigger, his teeth gritted and
his body shuddering under the recoil of the big rifle as it poured
thousands of rounds at the approaching helicopter.

Jersey and Anna and Beth held their fire, their Uzis not long-range
enough to be effective yet.

Hammer, on the far corner of the building, held an M-60 machine gun in
his huge arms at his waist, Rambo style, and stood up, firing along with
Harley at the onrushing helicopter.

The wall along the building top behind which Ben squatted shattered
under the impact of the Defender's 20mm Minigun as it screamed overhead.

Harley and Hammer both turned, continuing to pour fire into the rear of
the chopper, until smoke began to billow from its turbine engine and it
shuddered under the impact of hundreds of fifty- and sixty-caliber shells.

A stream of tracers from Hammer's M-60 danced toward the tail rotor and
finally merged with it, chewing it to pieces. The Defender began to
gyrate and whip back and forth, out of control, until it finally nosed
down and crashed in the mid-

300

die of the compound with an expanding fireball that roared fifty feet
into the air.

Several of the Mexican troops cheered and waved their rifles, evidently
thinking they had brought the chopper down with their small-arms fire.

Harley and Hammer ceased firing and grinned at each other, then ducked
back down behind the wall and looked for other targets.

The troops advancing across the desert sands toward the base from the
east faltered under the withering fire from the berm around the base,
and even began to pull back a little, just as another line of troops
appeared on the western horizon, also accompanied by a motorized company
of light tanks and several Kiowa and Huey helicopters.

"Shit!" Ben exclaimed to Jersey and Coop, who were squatting next to
him. "That must be Bottger's troops. Now we're in for it."

A HumVee with a fifty-caliber machine gun on a post in the rear roared
close by the berm, raking the troops along the top with rapid fire from
its fifty.

Several Mexican soldiers were blown off the back of the wall, to lie
twisting and screaming in the dirt, their blood staining the earth as
they died.

When the HumVee got within range, Jersey, Anna, Beth, and Coop leaned
over the wall and opened up with their Uzis, each firing six hundred
rounds per minute into the vehicle as it tried to draw a bead on more
soldiers.

The 9mm shells stitched a line of holes in the sides of the HumVee,
blowing out the two near-side tires. The driver grabbed his head, blood
spurting from his Kevlar helmet, and let go of the wheel. The HumVee
veered right, then left on the ruined tires and rolled three times,
throwing the dead driver and the rear-seat gunner out of the vehicle.

Three Mexican soldiers stood up behind their wall and pumped round after
round into the gunner until he too was dead.

301

In spite of murderous fire from the Mexican defenders, the troops on
both sides began to close the gap, moving forward despite tremendous
losses of men and machines in a do-or-die assault.

"It don't look too good, podna," Coop said out of the corner of his
mouth to Ben as the troops got within a hundred yards. The number of
Mexican soldiers seemed pitifully small in comparison to the forces
arrayed against them.

Suddenly, from off to the side, small vehicles began to appear, moving
at great speed toward the oncoming troops, spitting fire from 120mm
cannons in their noses as they maneuvered in and out of the scattering
troops.

"Look," Ben shouted, "it's Vulcans from Striginov's battalion."

As Jersey and Coop and the other members of Ben's team turned to look,
other vehicles began to appear. Two huge M-l Abrams tanks thundered over
a distant hill and began to fire at the smaller Sheridans accompanying
Loco's troops. The Sheridans tried to return fire, but began to explode
one by one under the rapid laser-guided fire of the Abrams.

Two helicopters, a Kiowa and a Huey, turned from their attack on the
base and flew toward the Abrams, evidently hoping to take them out with
missiles.

From out of the low-lying sun, three Apaches screamed between the Abrams
and the two helicopters, their Chain Guns blazing as they arrowed at the
hapless choppers.

The Kiowa, much faster than the Huey, managed to turn and run, but the
Huey disintegrated under the Chain Guns' fire, dropping like a stone to
burn brightly on the desert floor, sending clouds of oily black smoke
toward the sky.

The Kiowa tried to gain altitude and make an escape, but the lead Apache
let one of its Hellfire missiles go, and it ran right up the exhaust of
the Kiowa's turbine, blowing it out of the sky in a thousand pieces that
fell like rain on the parched desert below.

Seeing the battle turn, the attacking troops slowed, then

302

turned to run as more vehicles, including several Bradley Attack
Vehicles, appeared from the north. Soon, both attacking armies were in
full retreat, running and firing over their shoulders at the Mexican
troops, who boiled over the berm and began to chase the attackers back
the way they came.

In less than an hour, the field in front of the base was littered with
thousands of bodies and hundreds of broken, twisted piles of burning
metal, from Jeeps to HumVees to half-tracks, that had been destroyed by
Striginov's motorized madmen.

The Mexican troops, enraged and encouraged by the turn of the battle,
were taking no prisoners. They mowed the retreating troops down with
wild abandon, cheerfully pouring lead into their backs as they rushed
forward onto the battlefield.

"Jesus," Beth said, shaking her head. "It's a slaughter."

Ben nodded. "Yeah, exactly what would have happened to us had Georgi
been an hour later."

Soon, the troops of Striginov's battalion appeared on the field and
began rounding up prisoners, calming the killing rage of the Mexican
troops and ending the slaughter of the defeated armies.

Two hours later, General Herman Bundt and General Enrique Gonzalez were
brought before Ben, Georgi Striginov, and General Jose Guerra in the
officers' wardroom of the base commander's office.

Ben conducted the interrogation. "Where are your leaders, Perro Loco and
Bruno Bottger?" he asked the two men standing before him.

"I refuse to answer under the terms of the Geneva Convention," Bundt
said sourly. "All you are entitled to are my name, rank, and serial number."

"Is that so?" Ben asked. "Are you aware that under the terms of the
Geneva Convention, you are guilty of high war

303

crimes for the manufacture and release of biological weapons?"

Bundt stared fixedly ahead, while General Gonzalez looked at him in
horror. "What biological weapons? I have no knowledge of such a thing."

"I believe the penalty for war crimes is a firing squad, at which the
Mexican troops are more than proficient," Ben said calmly. "General Guerra?"

Guerra stepped forward to stand in front of Bundt. "I think a firing
squad is too good for this one," he said. "I believe I will simply turn
him over to my troops after telling them this is the man responsible for
the plague which even now is sweeping across our country, killing
thousands of their families and friends."

Bundt looked up, showing for the first time fear at what the general was
saying. "You wouldn't dare!"

"Take him away," Guerra said to an aide.

"Wait a moment," Bundt said hurriedly. "Field Marshal Bottger and Perro
Loco are in the Presidential Palace in Mexico City."

"Are they aware of your defeat?" Ben asked.

Both men shook their heads. "No, there wasn't time to report back to
them," Gonzalez said.

Ben looked at Striginov and Guerra. "That means we may still have time
to intercept them before they attempt to flee the country."

He thought for a moment, then spoke to Striginov. "I need one of your
Chinooks for my team, and a couple of Apaches to accompany us to Mexico
City. I have some unfinished business with both of those gentlemen."

304 Forty

The Apaches came in high and fast toward the Presidential Palace in
Mexico City. The soldiers guarding the palace were stationed around the
front porch and along the sides of the building, leaning against the
wall in the shade, trying to avoid the midday heat of the Mexican sun.
They were expecting no trouble, for all the fighting was taking place
two hundred miles to the north.

The Apaches separated, diving on the building from opposite sides at
over two hundred miles an hour, their Chain Guns chattering thousands of
rounds a minute into the hapless, unsuspecting defenders of the palace.

In the first pass, over half the guards were killed or wounded before
they knew they were under attack, their bodies shredded and torn apart
by the terrible impact of the bullets the Apaches were spitting with
such ferocity.

By the time the Apaches banked, turned, and began another pass, most of
the remaining guards were running for their lives down the palisade in
front of the building. Only a few were brave enough, and dumb enough, to
try to return fire.

The helicopters hovered and flitted around the building like angry bees
protecting their nest, firing into the guards until there were none left
to return fire.

Once they radioed it was safe, the Chinook carrying Ben and his team
landed on the tarmac in front of the palace.

Harley and Hammer exited first, cradling their SPAS shot-

305

guns in their arms, followed by Coop, Jersey, Anna, Beth, and finally Ben.

They ducked under the blades and ran to take up positions on the front
porch, which had been chewed up and splintered by the fire of the
Apaches, still hovering overhead, keeping a close lookout for any other
threats.

Harley leaned back and kicked the big double doors in the front of the
palace open with his foot. Then he and Hammer rushed into the building
side by side.

Two shots rang out from guards on the second floor. Harley jumped to the
side, leveled his shotgun, and blew them off the balcony, to fall twenty
feet to the marble floor, landing with a wet-sounding splat.

Hammer knelt, sweeping the rest of the balcony with his SPAS in case
anyone else tried to make a fight of it.

Coop and Jersey were next through the door, running crouched over to
ascend the stairs and secure the second floor. Coop carried a SPAS,
while Jersey had her Uzi tucked in her arms, her trigger finger itching
to find a target.

As Beth and Corrie and Ben entered the building, a door at the end of
the corridor burst open and three men charged out, firing M-16's as they
ran.

Coop fired three quick rounds with the SPAS, the razor-sharp flechette
needles in his shells shredding two of the men where they stood, blowing
them back into the room they'd come out of.

The third man managed to get off two shots, one of which hit Coop in the
left arm and spun him around, before Jersey unloaded on him with her Uzi
on full automatic.

The guard danced and spun and tumbled to the floor under the impact of
fifty 9mm rounds that tore him in half before dumping him on the floor
in a pool of blood.

The rest of Ben's team went room by room, finding and killing three more
guards before Harley declared the second floor secure and empty.

306

Ben looked up the staircase. "That must mean our men are on the third
floor."

Harley nodded. "There's bound to be more guards with 'em."

Ben looked over at Jersey, who was kneeling by Coop's side applying a
field dressing to the wound in his arm.

"Jerse, you stay here and take care of Coop," he said.

"Wait a minute," Coop protested, trying to get to his feet. "I'm okay. .
. ."

Jersey jerked him back down. "Sit down and shut up, for once in your
life, Coop," she said, smiling, "and let me take care of you."

He grinned back. "Now, that's an offer I can't refuse," he said.

She glared at him fiercely. "Not if you want to live!" she said, taking
his hand.

Anna stepped next to Harley, covering his back as he and Hammer went up
the steps, followed closely by Ben and Corrie and Beth, all holding
their weapons at the ready.

Harley peeked around a turn in the corridor and saw the barrels of
several weapons sticking out of doors along the corridor.

He pulled a flash-bang grenade from the belt on his chest, pulled the
ring, and pitched it down the hall. The phosphorus-filled grenade
exploded with a tremendous blast of light and heat and sound.

Several men screamed and ran from their hiding places, their hands over
their eyes and ears.

Harley and Hammer's shotguns boomed, knocking the men to the floor and
stopping their screaming.

Anna whirled and let go with her Uzi, killing two more men who had come
out of a closet behind Harley and Hammer.

Harley glanced around, then down at Anna. "That's one I owe you," he said.

"I'll make sure to collect when we have more time," she said, keeping an
eye out for more guards.

307

Ben eased around Harley and Hammer and made his way down the hall while
they covered him. He checked each and every office and room along the
way, making sure they were all empty.

Sudden shots rang out and he dived to the side, a furrow of blood
appearing along his shoulder and neck from two near misses. '

Corrie and Beth stepped into the doorway the shots came from and sprayed
the room with their Uzis, not bothering to aim, just waving the machine
guns back and forth as if they were watering the grass with a hose.

Harsh guttural screams rang out from two guards that were blown back
against the wall, their blood splattering the adobe walls as 9mm bullets
pocked the walls and raised a cloud of dust and cordite in the room.

Finally, the third floor was cleared of defenders, each room checked and
found to be empty-all except the presidential quarters at the end of the
hall. There were large, wooden double doors with a bronze sign on them
reading EL PRESIDENTE.

"Looks like the rats are finally trapped in their hole," Harley said to
Ben as they surveyed the corridor leading to the last room on the floor.

"Take cover," Ben said as he pulled a fragmentation grenade from his
pack. "Time to call the dance."

After everyone was hidden in doorways along the corridor, he pulled the
pin, rolled the grenade up against the double doors, and ducked into a room.

The grenade exploded, tearing the doors off their hinges and shattering
them into ruin. Jim Strunk and Paco Valdez, who'd evidently been hiding
behind the doors, stumbled into the hallway, their skin flayed and
bleeding and full of splinters as they sprayed the hallway with
machine-guns they held in their hands.

Harley and Hammer leaned out of their doorways and fired their shotguns
at point-blank range. The two men's bodies were lifted off their feet
and blown ten feet back into the presidential

308

quarters. They landed and rolled into a crumpled heap, dead before they
hit the highly polished marble floor.

Through the doorway, several desks could be seen pushed up near the wall
to form a barricade. Four men could be seen hiding behind the desks,
their heads barely visible in the darkened room.

"You might as well come out," Ben said. "Your armies have been defeated
and there is nowhere else for you to run."

"Chinga tu madrel" Perro Loco screamed as he leapt over the desk, a
sawed-off pump shotgun in his arms. He fired and pumped and fired,
screaming curses in Spanish as he bolted for the door.

Ben stepped out into the corridor, unmindful of the roaring shotgun, and
extended his arm. He fired one shot with his Beretta 9mm automatic.

The bullet struck Perro Loco dead center in his forehead, snapping his
head back and flinging him to the floor, where he lay with open eyes
staring into eternity, his smoking shotgun next to his body.

Jersey stepped to Ben's side. "Nice shot, Boss," she said, holding her
Uzi at waist level in case any more madmen appeared.

"Hold your fire! I give up!" a man yelled through the smoke that
billowed in the room.

Sergei Bergman walked around the desk and toward the doorway, his hands
in the air.

Just before he reached the door, a figure stood up behind him and aimed
a pistol at his back. "You coward!" Rudolf Hessner screamed, and fired,
hitting Bergman between the shoulder blades and catapulting him onto his
face.

Jersey didn't hesitate. Without aiming, she pulled the trigger on her
Uzi and spun Hessner around twice before he too was dead, his body
draped over the desk.

When the firing stopped, another voice called, "I am coming out. Do not
shoot!"

Ben's team gathered in the doorway as Bruno Bottger

309

stepped around from behind the desk, his hands in the air, his holster
at his side empty.

When he was in the center of the room, Ben stood before him. "Bruno
Bottger, I'm going to enjoy watching you swing at the end of a rope for
the war crimes you've committed."

Ben turned his back and began to walk away.

"Ben, look out!" Jersey screamed, unable to get a clear shot as Bottger
reached behind his back, pulled a Luger pistol out of his belt, and
aimed it at Ben's back.

"Die, Ben Raines!" Bottger screamed as he began to pull the trigger.

In one fluid motion, Ben jerked his K-Bar assault knife from the
scabbard on his belt, whirled, and threw it backhand at Bottger.

The knife buried itself to the hilt in Bottger's neck, severing his
spinal cord and killing him instantly. As his body crumpled to the
ground, Ben stood over him.

"Never talk when you should be shooting, asshole," he muttered to the
dead man.

310

A month later, General Jose Guerra, now known as El Presi-dente Guerra,
paid a visit to Ben's office in Louisiana.

He entered the office accompanied by Dr. Larry Buck. He stepped directly
to Ben's desk and held out his hand. "I am here to thank you on behalf
of my people for all you have done, General Raines."

Ben stood up and took his hand. "It was my pleasure, Mr. President."

"The plague is at last under control in Mexico, Ben," Dr. Buck said.
"There've been no new cases reported for the past week or so."

"How many did you lose, President Guerra?" Ben asked, sadness in his voice.

The president shrugged. "The total is not known as of yet, but it is a
surety that the numbers would have been much greater without the
assistance of the medical teams your country sent to aid us."

"We were all lucky," Ben said. "Were it not for the bravery of two of my
soldiers, we would all have been caught unawares by the plague."

President Guerra nodded. "I will say a prayer for them at Mass
tomorrow." He gave a quick bow of his head and left the room.

Ben glanced at Buck. "Speaking of heroes, how is Coop doing with his
wound?" he asked.

Buck laughed. "Quite well, actually. He's got Jersey con-

311

vinced he has to be hand-fed his meals and requires a back rub at least
twice a day."

Ben grinned. "The way I hear it, she won't leave his side because she's
afraid he'll make a pass at one of the nurses."

"God help Coop, and the nurse, if that happens," Buck said, shaking his
head.

312 AUTHOR'S NOTE

For those readers interested in facts, the following are the
specifications of the weapons and aircraft used in Warriors from the Ashes:

Ben carries a CAR (Carbine, Assault Rifle), 5.56 caliber. It is a
shortened version of the M-16. Because of the shortened barrel, a Bloop
Tube (which fits under the barrel of an M-16 and fires a 40mm rifle
grenade) cannot be used on a CAR. His side arm is a Beretta 9mm. Ben
will occasionally use an M-14, which he calls his Thunder Lizard. It's a
shoulder-pounding bitch on full auto, and is 7.62 mm, which is the
equivalent of .308 caliber in civilian ammo. The CAR, just like the M-16
and M-14, uses a 20- or 30-round magazine.

Uzi: aka: Mini-Uzi, Micro Uzi: Origin: Israel 1952 Caliber: 9x19 mm

Feed device: 20-, 32-, and 40-round detachable box magazine

Action: Recoil, selective fire Sights: Open Length: 64 cm (46 cm with
stock folded)

313

Muzzle velocity: 403 M7S

Rate of fire: 650 rounds per minute

Fairchild A-10 Warthog:

Weapons: 30mm cannon in nose, also fires laser- or TV-guided missiles

Length overall: 16.26 m (53 ft 4 in) Wing span: 17.53 m (57 ft 6 in)
Max. speed at sea level: 381 knots Combat radius: 463 km (290 miles)
Maximum weapons load: 7257 kg (7 tons, 320 lbs) Takeoff distance: 1219 m
(4000 ft)

Boeing/Bell V-22 Osprey:

Crew: 3 (pilot, copilot, crew chief) Length: 57 ft 3 in (17.5 m) Rotor
diameter: 38 ft (11.58 m)

Max. speed: 185 knots (helicopter mode), 275 knots (airplane mode)

Range: 2100 nautical miles Load: 20,000 pounds Wing span: 45 ft 10 in
(13.75 m)

General Dynamics F-lll Aardvark: Length: 22.4 m (73 ft 6 in) Wing span:
19.2 m (63 ft) Max. speed at sea level: 793 knots Combat radius: 1480 km
(920 miles) Max. weapons load: 11,340 kg (11 tons, 360 lbs) Takeoff
distance: 914 m (3000 ft)

314

McDonnel Douglas AH-64 Apache: Length: 17.76 m (56 ft 3 in) Rotor
diameter: 14.63 m (48 ft) Max. speed: 155 knots Range: 482 km (300 miles)

Standard weapon load: M230 30mm Chain Gun; 6 Hellfire antitank missiles

Bell OH-58 Kiowa: Length: 12.49 m (41 ft) Rotor diameter: 10.77 m (35 ft
4 in) Max. speed: 120 knots Range: 491 km (305 miles)

Standard weapon load: 7.62 or 20mm Minigun plus antitank missiles

Boeing Helicopters Ch-47 Chinook: Length: 30.18 m (98 ft 11 in) Rotor
diameter: 18.29 m (60 ft) Max. speed: 138 knots Range: 370 km (230
miles) Load: 44+ troops or 12,700 kg (12 tons, 1120 lbs)

Bell AH-1 HueyCobra: Length: 16.18 m (53 ft) Rotor diameter: 13.41 m (44
ft) Max. speed: 123 knots Range: 507 km (315 miles)

Standard weapon load: 8 TOW antitank missiles; 1 3-barreled 20mm cannon;
2 unguided rocket or cannon pods

315

McDonnel Douglas OH-6 Defender: Length: 9.4 m (30 ft 10 in) Rotor
diameter: 8.03 m (26 ft 4 in) Max. speed: 119 knots Range: 428 km (265
miles) Standard weapon load: 20mm Minigun

315

Bill Johnstone likes to hear from his readers. You can e-mail him at
dogcia@aol.com

316

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