“Seven bellies he had.” Put in his mate. “Like a stack of jellies jogging, they were, and he farted at every other step!”
“What is it with you guys?” asked Captain Li, his face screwing up in distaste at the description.
“Is there some ‘Instilling graphic and unpleasant mental images, course’ you all attend or something?”
He gave consideration to what he had just been told. The out of shape resident in combat jacket hurrying out to his car was more than likely a member of the reserve platoon formed from retirees.
“Where were they headed?”
“North, sir.” The first trooper replied.
“So, good news for us here but not so good for the launch pad teams.” muttered Li. Not good news for the town either, he thought, knowing that the orders in his safe would have to be carried out regardless of his personal feelings.
The captain of Bao would have a sealed copy in his safe, to be opened on the death or incapacity of Li, the next senior officer in the flotillas chain of command.
His executive officer also knew, Li had briefed him of course. The only other member of the crew to be intimate with that part of the mission would of course be his own ‘steward’, who may even have received a briefing by the admiral himself before the orders had even been written.
However, there was still time, they did not know for certain that the launch pad teams had been compromised, and even if they had it did not automatically follow that they were prevented from completing their missions?
He had his fingers crossed for Jie and those nineteen men to show before the refuelling was done and the bridge dropped into the muddy Kourou.
Across at the bridge the demolition preparations were well under way. Two troopers stood watch, one for trouble approaching from Cayenne and one keeping an eye on the quartet of caiman in the river. The biggest and strongest had claimed the sentry’s corpse so the others were watching another pair of troopers hanging by ropes below the bridges roadbed, wiring it up.
An adult caiman’s tail can lift 80 % of its body vertically upwards, clear of the water for just long enough to snatch unwary birds and monkeys from the lower limbs of overhanging trees, and Li could imagine what was going through the minds of the hungry trio as they watched the troopers suspended below the bridge, working swiftly and methodically like temptingly dangling Piñatas.
The trooper watching the trio of reptiles obviously thought they were thinking the same thing as he suddenly fired a long burst, the spent cases hitting the tarmac road surface and making more noise than the fired rounds had. One of the beasts reared up, threshing and twisting…the other two immediately turned on it, sinking their teeth in and instinctively rolling their wounded brother, seeking to subdue it by drowning before tearing off chunks and devouring it.
“That’ll keep them busy until we’re done.” Senior Sergeant Yen observed aloud but broke off as an armed rating relayed a message from the front gate, shouting across that the telephone was ringing non-stop at the gatehouse.
“Well.” Said Captain Li. “If they answer it then whoever is on the other end will know something is wrong and they will come in force, or they can leave it and maybe just a few will come to see if anything’s wrong in which case you can thin out the opposition a bit…but it’s your call Senior Sergeant, you are the on-site authority on dry land combat.”
Twelve armed sailors and the four troopers who were not engaged at the bridge was hardly a substantial force.
Senior Sergeant Yen departed to arrange what he had called a greeting for the unwelcome with some of the Type 72 light anti-tank mines they had brought. Not as effective as bar mines they were good for wrecking a tanks tracks and a road wheel perhaps. They could temporarily incapacitate any current main battle tank and devastate soft skin vehicles. As the French in Guiana had none of the former and plenty of the latter the relatively small but powerful AT mines could prove useful.
As Dai’s fuel tanks reached absolute capacity the Bao arrived, holding station in midstream as Dai cast off, and again moved beyond the dark and silent Fliterland, still operating on battery power in the hope of keeping their presence a secret as long as possible.
The maw-like air intakes and even larger exhausts’ covers remained closed and hopefully would remain so until they were again back out to sea.
Perhaps the telephone call was the guard’s wife? Perhaps it was a wrong number or even his bookie…?
It arrived with a thunderous roar, its undercarriage just clearing the white painted roof of the covered parking area, overflying the Fliterland and the two Chinese submarines to disappear in a shock of noise and downwash beyond the jungle canopy of the southern bank.
Neither Dai’s or Bao’s air sentries fired, so suddenly had the big Chinook appeared and departed that only Bao’s 23mm and a trooper on the road bridge fired a shot. The 23mm cannons gunner failed to aim ahead of the aircraft before letting rip so naturally he missed by as much as four aircraft lengths, the tracer curving harmlessly behind it. The troopers lighter and sound suppressed rounds ‘lacked the legs’ as they say, falling short.
“I thought they booby trapped that bloody thing?” Li shouted across the warrant officer on the dock who had paused to duck and watch the big shape cross the river.
The sound of the big rotor blades drowned out the reply as the machine cleared the trees downriver, flaring as it crossed back over to the north side and obviously aiming for some open space four hundred or so yards away around the bend. Li could barely make it out in the dark.
It was impressive flying by a military or ex-military pilot with plenty of experience in heliborne assaults. Flying so low as to minimise the opportunity of effective ground fire.
Li realised that his own air sentry was unable to engage it with the Strela as the submarines bridge was in the back blast area of the weapon. It was his own fault for not repositioning the sentry on the casing when the opportunity arose and he cursed himself for a fool now.
Don Caldew had been flying for the ‘My T Oak’ logging and lumber company for over two years, since right after getting out of the service in fact, flying the companies surplus Boeing CH47 Chinook.
The pay cheques were fatter than the ones Uncle Sam had given him but the work was as dull as ditch water. He missed the excitement, the adrenalin rush of flying into a hot LZ, he missed the guys and he missed something else too, the mission purpose, the sense you were doing something important. He recognised that that was what had made him sign on the dotted line in the first place.
Don came from a little town in the American Midwest where he was born in the same hospital his folks had been born, went to the same High School his folks and their folks before them had attended, and was expected to get a job at the local plant, just as his parents and their parents had. They hadn’t even considered setting up a college fund for him. Why should he want or expect anything more? Don did want more, but he didn’t know quite what it was that was missing from the life plan his parents had presented him with. The answer, when he found it, had changed his life forever.
The army recruiter at the local county fair had seen a light appear in young Don’s eyes as he looked at the glossy photographs in the pamphlets and the poster with the ‘Be All You Can Be’ title. Most of the first questions the recruiter got from visitors to his stand were “What’s the pay like?” or “Did you ever shoot anyone, mister?” The first category, if they signed on, would wash out in 70 % of cases, the second would come back in ten years when they were old enough and ask the same question as the first category. But Don’s had been “Do you make a difference?”