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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 sh.e.l.l was filled with hundreds of tiny razor-sharp shards of metal that would shred a man like a scythe would gra.s.s. 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 pa.s.sed 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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, G.o.d ... oh, G.o.d, 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d," 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 129.

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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 h.e.l.l 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.

"f.u.c.k the wounded!" LaFite whispered hoa.r.s.ely over his shoulder. "We're obviously outnumbered. We'll regroup later," he added as he coweredunder 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 h.e.l.l attacked us?" one asked.

"I dunno," the other answered. "It was only supposed to be four or five men we were after."

"h.e.l.l, 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 b.i.t.c.hes," 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 pa.s.sed, 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.

131.

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- 133.

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sian forebears, liked nothing more than to b.i.t.c.h 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. a.s.sign Bottger's troops to the western front. All of the pa.s.sable 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- 135.

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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 circ.u.mstances, 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."

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"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.