Warriors from the Ashes Read online

  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. 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 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 merc 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 mercs.”

  “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?”

  “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 matériel stored and ready to go at any time.”

  “Still, twenty-five thousand troops doesn’t sound like enough to get too worried about,” Corrie 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 mercs. 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.

  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, jerking 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.

  ELEVEN

  The freighter carrying supplies and matériel 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.”

  “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 señoritas 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 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 merc 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.

  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 mercs 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.”

  * * *

  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 me
n trained as soon as possible.

  So, it was almost dusk when the final exercises were over and the DIs dismissed the men to their barracks 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 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.