The Lotus Eaters

Now freed of the restraining hand, Carrera rushed for the cover ahead. The Balboan who had grabbed Carrera's belt followed, as did the other three. The last of the group was hit two meters from the edge of the depression, machine gun fire spinning him around and leaving him in the dirt. The man moaned with pain until a second, unnecessary, burst made sure he was dead.

Finally understanding where Carrera was headed, Menshikov directed the Volgan fire to suppress any Santandern position that could see into the ditch. Bullets pockmarked select places on the wall ahead.

* * *

Victorio, now crouched in the bunker he had chosen to command the fight from, had often wished, in his younger days, to cross swords with the gringos and defeat them. And now, at long last, it looked like—

'We're holding the sons of bitches. We're holding them.'

One of the guerilla fighters shook his head and said, 'Comandante, we've got company.'

The guerilla then raised a rifle to shoot at Carrera's head as it peeked over the top of the ditch. One of the Volgans back with the company fired at the head. The Volgan missed, but the fire caused the guerilla, too, to miss by inches. That near miss spattered dirt and caused Carrera to duck his head again.

* * *

Menshikov saw Carrera's position near the bunker. He passed the word 'Fix bayonets!' Fire from along the tree line slackened temporarily in a sort of a ripple as word was passed from man to man and each man took his rifle off his shoulder to comply. Then, bayonets attached, the fire resumed. Menshikov sent one squad, reduced now to five men, to crawl up the same ditch to support Carrera and his guards.

* * *

Spitting out dirt from the near miss, Carrera automatically checked his trouser leg cargo pockets for grenades. Double fuck. Of course I don't have any. I'm the next fucking thing to a fucking general officer. We don't carry grenades. We're not smart enough. He asked his escort if they had any. No, they were in civvies; there'd been no place to hide any hand grenades.

OK. Have to use the satchel charge, then my bayonet—understandably, the denim and guayabera dressed Balboans didn't have those either—to cut the wire. He pulled his Volgan-designed bayonet and scabbard from his belt, drew the bayonet and affixed it to the scabbard to form wire cutters. These he handed to one of the Balboans.

While Volgan fire snapped overhead, keeping the bunkers' occupants' heads down, Carrera grabbed the straps of the satchel charge and swung it experimentally to make sure it would clear the sides of the ditch. Then, keeping his grip in the same place, he used his free hand to pull the igniter. With a pop, the igniter sparked and caught the fuse alight. A thin stream of smoke began to rise from where the internal heat bubbled and split the plastic around the fuse.

There really wasn't time to think now. Where he might otherwise have hesitated about sticking his head up amid all the fire, now Carrera had but one thought: To get rid of the satchel-encased catastrophe before it blew up in his face. He swung the charge around three times, then lifted up on the fourth and released it to fly toward the bunker.

He barely beat to the dirt the bullets that sought his life.

* * *

Victorio saw Carrera's sparking bomb fly to a landing that had to be near the main firing port for his bunker. He began to order one of his men out to throw it back, then realized that he was the only one unoccupied. He dropped his rifle and ran out the back of the bunker, then turned and lunged the six feet to the satchel. Bullets from the attackers firing line across the clearing kicked up dirt at his feet. As he stooped to pick up the smoking bundle one of the Volgan's bullets found him. He felt one leg jerk as he fell. Again he tried to throw the bomb away, even if only a little. He was hit again, this time in the chest. Victorio coughed blood as he made a final attempt to get rid of the damned bomb.

I'm sorry, friends. I can't. Too weak.

The explosion stunned Carrera and his men. Dirt and rocks showered down on them. Again risking a look over the ditch, Carrera saw a tangle of logs, dirt and sandbags where the blast had partly knocked in one side of the bunker. He directed the Balboan with the wire cutters to begin working through the wire, one other to watch over him. Then he and the remaining guard began to fire their weapons down the line of Santandern bunkers, suppressing them.

A sound to his right caused Carrera to turn and almost to fire up the ditch. Then he saw the familiar shape of a gringo helmet. His finger eased from the trigger. With hand gestures, he told the Volgans to start clearing the bunker line from the south to the north. Fortunately, they did have grenades.

In the distance, short bursts from the ANA-23's various guns told that the fight at and for the airfield was still ongoing.

* * *

A burst of fire from above raised screams from a small assault group a bare fifty meters away, causing Comandante Ingrid to shudder. Ambushing a patrol from, or overrunning an outpost of, the Santandern Army was one kind of thing. They were just men, like her own, and could be killed. But Ingrid was now realizing that the gunship overhead was a wholly different order of threat. She couldn't kill it; she couldn't even engage it to any effect. And it could see. The screams that followed nearly every burst from overhead told her the damned thing could see well, even through the jungle cover.

Run? She asked herself. Do I run and leave Victorio to his fate? Can I even run or will that flying monster pursue? No . . . no. So I stay here and die . . . or I run and die . . . or . . . maybe . . .

'Fix bayonets,' the female guerilla commander ordered into her radio. 'Wait for my command but we're going to charge them . . . get in among them where that airplane can't fire for fear of hitting its own.'

Even as she heard her little command group fixing bayonets behind her, Ingrid heard one of them mutter, 'Oh, shit.'

* * *