Countdown: M Day Read online

  I can probably live with that, von Ahlenfeld thought, then asked, “How are your Guyanan battalions?”

  Stauer made a so-so gesture, shaking his wide-spread fingers, palm down, and hand held low. “Technically and tactically, they’re pretty fair,” he explained. “Morally? For battle? Not so great. Not awful. Not great, either. But they’re getting better Cazz’s Third, in particular, shows promise.

  “See, there’s not a lot of military tradition here. Sure, they did what they could for the old Empire, but that was very damned little. When we had that little dust-up with Suriname, maybe a quarter of them deserted. Naturally, we didn’t let the deserters back afterwards. We’d probably have lost another quarter if the Surinamese hadn’t folded as quick as they did. To be fair, they were newer then.”

  “What happened with Suriname, anyway?” von Ahlenfeld asked. “I mean the whole thing. I read about it in the papers, but those were long on condemnation and short on facts.”

  Stauer pointed to a different map on his wall than the one von Ahlenfeld had been studying previously. This map showed the entire top and northeast corner of South America.

  “This place,” he said, “is in the possibly unique position of having almost its entire territory claimed by its neighbors. It’s Poland, but without the tradition of nationhood.”

  Stauer’s finger shifted left. “To the west of the Essequibo River, Venezuela claims better than half the country. Bad as the fucking Palestinians with Israel, Venezuelan maps in school kids’ textbooks show the place as part of Venezuela. Hell, back about 2006, Venezuela even added another star to their flag to represent Guyana, or the portion of it they claim, and that’s always a bad sign.”

  The finger flicked to the right. “To the east, Suriname claims a good deal of what’s left. And it’s been arbitrated—repeatedly arbitrated—and all parties have agreed on the current borders. And those agreements are simply discarded almost as soon as the ink is dry on them and the claims get raised again.

  “There was a Canadian energy company that tried to do some exploratory drilling in one of the disputed zones, out to sea. The Surinamese navy showed up and carted off their drilling platform. That was the second time that had happened, so the Guyanan government asked us for help. I said we were willing, but we extracted some serious concessions out of them for it. Like our own legal system and laws, recognized and accepted by them, right to use their defense establishment, such as it is, to recruit locally, to order arms and equipment, that sort of thing, plus an official status.

  “One of the side effects of recruiting locally is that we’ve essentially wrecked Guyana’s own Defense Force, by the way. All the best recruits come to us and even some of their leadership has defected over to us because we train better, live better, and can pay a lot better. You will find a number of former Guyanan captains wearing sergeant’s and corporal’s stripes here.

  “So we sank Suriname’s navy, then landed Second Battalion at their major base and killed or captured most of what was left, people-wise. Then we crossed over the border with Reilly and his band of cutthroats, wrecking the Surinamese land force, too. About the time we were halfway from the border to Paramaribo, the Surinamese government decided that, since the Dutch Marines wouldn’t get here in time to help, maybe the old border and offshore drilling were just fine, after all. However, given the history and nature of boundary disputes here, the Canadians pay us a retainer to keep ready, because there will be a next time.”

  I’m counting on it, von Ahlenfeld thought. If not, I wouldn’t even be here.

  “God knows,” Stauer continued, “the locals couldn’t afford to pay us for their defense. They’re dirt poor and they’ll stay dirt poor, too, because almost no one is willing to invest here lest the country be partitioned and they lose their investment. The Canadians are almost unique, and either very cagey or very stupid, for putting new money into the place.

  “So, anyway …that’s a few of the Second Battalion’s missions: to provide training support to—well, to be honest, to be—the jungle school here, to manage personnel to provide company command for the three Guyanan battalions, and to provide initial entry and more advanced training. There’s one other.”

  “Yes?”

  Stauer smiled. “Yes. Typically we only need one of your three line companies for lane walking squads and platoons for the jungle school at any given time. One of the others trains itself. The last mission, for whichever company isn’t doing one of those two, is to be ready to conduct and to conduct special operations, on order, on our own behalf, or, more typically, on behalf of someone who has contracted for our services.”

  “Now, do you want to look the place over before you make a decision? We can grab lunch at the O Club on the way.”

  “Sounds good,” Lee agreed. “By the way, were those tanks I saw from the air as I came in? And if so, where did they come from? I didn’t recognize the model.”

  Stauer nodded. “Yeah, those were tanks. Half of them we captured in Africa, the other half we bought from Israel through the good offices of the government of Guyana, of which we’ve been an official reserve since about five hours before we landed near Paramaribo. They’re Ti-67s2 tanks; that’s what the Israeli company that did the mods calls them, anyway. The mods themselves were from China and Textron, who call the model the ‘Jaguar.’ We just call them ‘tanks.’ Basically they’re modified T-55s with a new American turret configuration, a thermal-sleeved 105mm gun, Israeli fire control, explosive reactive armor, and a host of other improvements. They’re a good buy for the money, and when you capture half of what you need …”

  “Should I ask?”

  Stauer shook his head. “Nah. I could tell you, but …“On the other hand, I can tell you that, outside of your battalion’s, most of our arms are Russian.”

  Von Ahlenfeld didn’t sneer, as some might have.

  “We mostly went high end Russian, mind you,” Stauer continued. “No Kalashnikovs, for example. We bought Abakans. No PKM’s, we’ve got Pechenegs. Grenade launchers are GM-94’s. Heavy machine guns are KORD’s. Our light machine guns are RPK-74’s, though.

  “We stayed away from RPG-7’s. Instead we’ve got RPG-16’s. For medium antiarmor work we’ve got Vampires. Chile sold us a couple of dozen Israeli-built 60mm High Velocity guns on old QF Six Pounder carriages, plus spare barrels and a shitload of ammunition. We’ve got a very limited number of SPG-9’s. We didn’t bother with antitank guided missiles, other than a couple of launchers in your battalion, and Reilly’s antitank platoon, because the terrain just doesn’t generally suit them.

  “For artillery we went French, because they were available. Mortars are Israeli. Sniper rifles are Barretts, in .338, from home.

  “And then, every light battalion has a platoon of Eland 90’s as armored gun systems …”

  “If you don’t mind my asking,” von Ahlenfeld queried, “meaning that I’ll survive the answer, where did you get all that shit?”

  Stauer scratched lightly at his nose, hesitated a moment, then answered, “Mostly …ummm …Victor.”

  “Victor? No shit?” Von Ahlenfeld looked and sounded incredulous. “We were all sure he was dead.”

  “He would be,” Stauer replied. “He would be right quick like, if he ever tried to settle down somewhere without at least a regiment to keep him alive.”

  Stauer had released Hosein to the RSM and was driving himself. He hated riding in the back of a vehicle, didn’t much like making someone else do so, and wanted to talk to von Ahlenfeld one on one.

  “How the fuck do you pay for all this?” von Ahlenfeld asked, as Stauer’s Land Rover passed a row of substantial, white stucco-covered barracks before turning north from the last outlying camp, Camp Python, to head back to Camp Fulton. A housing area lined the eastern side of the road as they progressed. A sign announced that the name of the place was “Glen Livet.” It, too, was white stucco though, unlike the barracks, built mostly to single floor plans.

  “I mentione
d that Canadian energy company,” Stauer answered. “We have funding, some of it regular, some of it spotty, from eight other sources.

  “Our jungle school makes a profit—pretty good profit, as a matter of fact—from selling training to the Army and Marines. We can handle up to a regiment or brigade at a time. And, once a year, we give the Guyanan’s own infantry battalion a free rotation. I write that off as a good will measure. We go pretty easy on them, actually, which is only fair since, as mentioned, we’ve wrecked them.

  “You will, by the way, see a lot of oddities in our table of organization because, officially, we primarily support a jungle school. For example, we’ve got mules and small submarines, hovercraft, unmarked civvie cars, and even bicycles because you can reasonably expect an irregular force to use any or all of those to move people and supplies. And landing craft because a regular force can expect to be moved by those, sometimes, anyway.”

  Stauer paused, then added, “Anyway, we wrecked the Guyanans. Except for their Second Infantry Battalion—‘Two Battalion,’ they call it. It’s a reserve formation and it’s better than you would expect because a number of the people who take their discharge from us, and take on civilian employment, opt to keep their hand in with the GDF reserve. We don’t have a reserve of our own, though we’ve considered it. Each of our two light infantry battalions have adopted two of those four GDF companies, unofficially. Our Third Battalion took on ‘Big Brother’ duties for their 242 and 244 companies, while our Fourth, FitzMacach’s crew, helps out their 243 and 245 companies.

  “Doesn’t cost us much, really. And they’re happy to get whatever help we can give them.

  Von Ahlenfeld coughed in such a way as to mean, And, again, you pay for this how?

  “Oh, right,” Stauer said. “At any given time, some of Third and Fourth Infantry battalions, along with Fifth Combat Support and Eighth Service Support, are away under a personal security contract. Right now it’s ninety-four gringos and Euros and five hundred and ninety-one Guyanans deployed. Those battalions are all overstrength, anyway. We make a pretty fair amount of money out of those, more than enough to pay the expenses of those four battalions But then you’d know all about that.”

  Von Ahlenfeld just smiled. Post retirement from the Army, he’d been CEO of a major security provider for quite a few years before he’d gotten tired of the thing.

  “And, yes,” Stauer said, “I knew you were sick of it, so I didn’t even think about offering you that job.

  “We also get the occasional paid mission for one of Second Battalion’s line companies, or a portion thereof. We charge through the nose for those, though. You may recall those eight ships running Israel’s blockade of Gaza that sank in the Med?”

  “What did the Israelis pay you for that one?”

  Stauer smiled broadly. “The Israelis didn’t. They could have done it themselves for cheaps, if they still had the balls for that kind for thing. A pro-Israel group in the United States did. It was just good luck that a storm picked up when the limpets started going off.” His broad smile became a laugh. “Just think of it; seven hundred and nineteen ‘peace activists’—unusually well-armed ‘peace activists,’ at that—drowned overnight Except for the fifty or so who blew to atoms when the mine set off the what we think were a hundred and fifty-odd tons of rockets, shells, and explosives they had hidden under the concrete and food.”

  Stauer sighed contentedly. “Sometimes, you know, the satisfaction of just knowing you’re doing the Lord’s work is more important than what you’re paid. One of our ex-SEAL types is Jewish. He took special pleasure in mining the Saint Rachel of Ihop.”

  Von Ahlenfeld thought, Oh, yes, I am going to enjoy this job.

  “Are you the folks who fed Julian Assange and his eight pals feet first into a wood chipper and then posted the video on Wikileaks?” he asked.

  Stauer shook his head, “Nah. We’d have done it, happily—happily killed the fuckers, anyway—but someone beat us to it. Not sure who, maybe it was Mossad.” For the briefest of moments, his face looked mildly piqued, as if he wished it had been his people who had done the killing. The look faded.

  “We run a shipping company with a freighter we originally leased but later decided to buy, plus a sister model we outright bought, and another eleven we lease. Two of the crews and all of the captains and XOs are our people, but we never move anything for ourselves, or anything under the table, except with a ship fully crewed by our folks. Sometimes we exchange crews completely so we can do that with ships we’re surer nobody’s watching.

  “Mostly all I expect out of the freighter business is that it pay for itself, while letting us move people and things around. It does. Barely. Long term, if the economy turns around, we should make a good profit.

  “Sometimes, but not often, we use the freighters to run arms. We make a lot more money on those jabs, but they’re tricky.”

  Stauer pulled into the parking lot by headquarters, parked, tossed the keys to a waiting Hosein, then led von Ahlenfeld back to his office.

  Without missing a beat, he continued there, “Then there’s what we make off of local resources.”

  Von Ahlenfeld looked at him from under a furled brow. “Huh?”

  Stauer rocked his head back and forth a few times before answering, “We bought this area”—Stauer stood and walked to a map and began to trace with his finger—“bounded by the Mazaruni River, the Kaburi River, and the Issano Road, plus some small outlying parcels. It’s just over four hundred thousand acres’ worth, for …well, for shit, basically. And the Guyanan government was happy to get such a good price. Besides timber, it’s got rubber, gold, bauxite, gems …Trust me, we make a fair profit on the deal and they get fifteen percent of our net. Plus we own a chunk down in Brazil that we don’t use for anything but profit.”

  “How big a chunk?” von Ahlenfeld asked.

  “Think, Rhode Island. Big chunk. We can’t use it ourselves because the Brazilians are highly suspicious of us, in general. They don’t know what we did, but they know we did something there that they wouldn’t like if they knew about it.”

  Stauer looked Heavenward, almost as if he expected the skies to open and lighting to strike him down. “And then …well …we made a lot of money on our first operation, in Africa. A lot more than we were supposed to make, shall we say? That’s been invested and gives a pretty good return.” When no lightning came down he visibly relaxed and turned his eyes back to his guest. “And, since the world’s economy is already about as down as it can be, those investments are pretty safe, too.”

  “I’m almost sold,” von Ahlenfeld said. “And the money you’re offering is …enough, if on the low side of what outfits like yours pay. But what I really want to know is, how much independence of command do I get?”

  “Oh, c’mon, Lee,” Stauer admonished. “You know me. I don’t care how you get the job done so long as you get it done. Christ, I put up with Reilly, don’t I?”

  Von Ahlenfeld sighed contentedly. “Good point. If you can stand him, you can stand me. Okay, pending any shocking revelations, I’m in.”

  “What? You don’t even want to see the house that goes with the job?”

  “Is it in ‘Glen Livet’?”

  “Ummm …no. The Second Battalion’s housing area’s called ‘Glen Fiddich’. And, yes, it’s sort of an inside joke.”

  “What? No Glen Morangie?” von Ahlenfeld asked.

  “That’s Reilly’s battalion’s housing area,” Stauer replied, straight-faced.

  “And the housing area for Headquarters is?”

  “Woodford Reserve,” Stauer answered, then added, “Yeah, I fucked up and let Reilly and the sergeant major lay out the camps and name them. So sue me.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  No one starts a war—or rather, no one in his

  senses ought to do so—without first being clear in his

  mind what he intends to achieve by that war and

  how he intends to conduct it.

 
—Karl von Clausewitz, On War

  Joaquin Crespo Room, Miraflores Palace, Caracas, Venezuela

  The only thing that really bothered the president was that he’d come to the decision so easily. That said, it was an obvious decision. When one has a domestic problem one cannot overcome, very often the best—at least, the quickest—way to solve it was to create a foreign problem to take people’s minds off their petty domestic concerns. Some would have called it cynical; to Chavez, it was simply realistic.

  He’d given the military arms thirty days to prepare a plan. Today, their thirty days were up and he would demand some answers.

  And the filth better have some, he thought, as he sat centered among sundry civil, political, and military advisors.

  Red shirts interspersed with occasional green, tan, white, or blue uniforms lined one side and both ends of the long conference table. It was a closed meeting, so that behind that seated line there were no other shirts and no other uniforms. Before the president, standing by a map on one wall with his pointer resting on the map, stood a general staff officer in tans. The beribboned general removed the end of his pointer from the map from which he’d been briefing, letting the end fall to rest on the marble-tiled floor.

  “And so you see, Mr. President,” said General Quintero, “we need to keep First through Third Infantry Divisions facing Colombia, along with Fourth Armored and the most of the Novena Division.” Even though, since your friends at Metalurgica Van Dam refitted the French tanks, the turrets won’t even turn and a machine gun can penetrate the sides. At least they look threatening.