'If you don't like that, there's option B: Seize the targets: leave the vehicles behind; everybody goes out by air. I won't comment on what this does to the rest of your plan, even assuming we could do it before the tanks are ramming their barrels up our asses.
'Then there's C: Reconfigure the light aircraft due in, in a few days, to attack the armor base. They'll have to linger there, shooting anything that moves, for several hours. My guess is that while they'd cause some delay, even get a few, they wouldn't stop the tanks.
'Lastly is my personal favorite,' Reilly continued. 'D: Two to four aircraft-call it ‘three'-strike the place, along with the mortars, immediately following which I and the Elands roll in and shoot the shit out of it, while my XO takes the rest of the company to the objective to seize the targets. The aircraft can keep any survivors busy while the company links up and moves to the sea. This has some downsides in terms of the likelihood of meeting serious resistance at the objective, and people escaping through a thinner net. I was counting on those 90mm guns to cow the opposition. Oh, and I'm going to need the cooks to supplement my mortar section. In any case, even D has some . . . issues.'
Note to self, Stauer thought, bet with Sergeant Major, pay off, soonest.
'How about dropping off your engineers to mine the road?' he asked.
Reilly shook his head. 'I've checked the maps. The road's a convenience, nothing more. With luck we get one tank that way and then the rest pull off road into the desert and continue the march. And there are no unfordable streams we could drop the bridges to, nor even any fordable ones we could mine the fords of.'
'What if I cancelled Welch's mission and sent his boys to take out the compound?'
Reilly wrinkled his nose, this time. Despite that, he replied, 'I've got no brief against special forces, but they're just as likely to alert the opposition as to take them out. Only so much shit can be back-packed, after all. And besides, you need them for the mission you've already got them on. The whole thing's kind of a waste, from our point of view, if they don't do that.'
And if Welch's mission doesn't go off, we can't stay together, and I spend the rest of my miserable life alone.
'Yeah,' Stauer admitted. 'I'm willing to consider Option D. It's very close to what Boxer and Waggoner came up with, by the way.'
'Greats minds and all,' Reilly said with a shrug. 'That said, I've got another problem.'
'Which is?'
'My tankers are maybe on the verge of mutiny over the limitations of the Eland. Sergeant Abdan's playing it down, for now, but it has me worried.'
'What are you doing about it?'
'For now, I'm sending the two South Africans around to tell war stories. That should prove especially effective since one of them was Eland crew in their border war, and took out T-55's with them, while the other was on the receiving end, if not exactly in a T-55. I'm also going to have to have a long chat with Mendes about talking up the Eland. That's going to be tough, because she thinks we're suicidal maniacs for even thinking about it. And I don't know how good an actress she is. And while I like Option D better than the others, it's still a shitty plan. If they see us coming, we're fucked.'
'That's what I told Waggoner.'
The explosion had a metallic quality to it: Blang. The 90mm subcaliber device sounded and a target to the left front shuddered with the impact. A small puff of smoke told of the hit.
The sound of the spotting rifles, as muffled by the 90mm barrels, was odd, flatter sounding than what the troops were used to in the .50 caliber Browning. Lana rode the back deck, with her head inside the turret. Twenty- one of the twenty-seven available subcal devices were loaded on this Eland, in the immediately accessible ready racks. The platoon leader, Green, commanded and loaded-a tough job in itself-while his gunner, face pressed to the gunner's sight, frantically spun the traversing and elevating wheels to line up on targets that appeared at random, ahead and to either side. The gunner's face ran with sweat from the effort, despite the air conditioning the Israelis had installed, clouding his eyes and fogging up the sight. The bouncing of the armored car on the rough ground made the gunner's job seem impossible.
'Gunner, HEAT, Tank!' Green called out, dropping back to his seat and grabbing a round which he stuffed up the breech. 'Three o'clock.'
Lana counted off the seconds as the gunner spun the turret to the right. One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five, and assume you're dead, gunner, because at this range they can't miss. She thought it, but said nothing. Reilly wants me to act like I've got confidence; I'll act like it.
The subcal sounded again. Lana didn't need to see the target; she knew it had been a miss from the way the gunner slammed his head against the sight in frustration.
Green, however, having stuck his head up again, did see the miss. Once again he dropped down to his seat, screaming, 'Gunner, HEAT . . . '
Lana shook her head. Inside, she felt rising despair. Shit; it doesn't even matter. Their heavy antiaircraft machine gun can penetrate at this range.
'Lana,' Reilly said, after she confronted him with her fears and doubts, 'don't sweat it so much. The tank commanders are not going to spend much time under fire with their heads above the hatch. That's why I have infantry. There will not be a manned machine gun capable of engaging except for the coax guns, and those won't penetrate. And while a slow traverse is fatal at close range, it doesn't matter as much at long range.
'You just get my boys trained to engage and hit the targets. Leave the tactics of the thing to me.' Now if only I could come up with something I had some confidence in, myself.
'Is that confidence,' she asked, 'or just overweening pride?'
Reilly laughed. 'Maybe a little of both. Well . . . ' he hesitated, then sighed. He looked her in the eye and said, 'Look, Lana, this is the truth. As near as I can tell, it is, anyway. I'm not a good man. I'm sure not a nice man. I've got the morals of an alley cat . . . except that that's an insult to self-respecting alley cats everywhere.
'But there are two things I can do better than anyone I know . . . anyone I ever heard of that's living. I can train troops better and I can lead them in combat better.
'So if you won't have confidence in your Elands, or my crews, have confidence in me. They're going to be about two to three times more effective than you think is even possible . . . because of the way I'll train them and the way I'll use them in action. Do you think these guys came here and are still trying because they lack confidence in me? And, remember, the core of them know me from way back.'
Mendes chewed at her lower lip while searching his face for the truth in his words. He believes it, she thought. He really does. Maybe . . . just maybe. And I do like him. Or worse. So . . .
'Fine. You're that sure?' She glanced at his face again. Yes, he was that sure. 'Then I want to come along. You need a maintenance chief anyway, to ride herd on the Boer and the Bantu. And I, at least, won't look askance at Viljoen and Dumi for doing things that I do myself.'
Reilly scratched at the side of his head for a half a minute before answering. 'Let me ask Stauer if we can afford another . . . man . . . on the rolls.' And did she just send me a hint? Did I suggest it to her with that 'morals of an alley cat' line? Shit. 'And if you can't believe we have a chance, Lana, can't you at least fake it, for the men?'
She smiled then and, lifting her chin, answered, 'I am a woman. Of course I can fake things for men.'
God, what a wonderful girl.
***
'I see misery in your future,' Viljoen said to Lana, later, over dinner.
Dumisani, sitting next to Lana and opposite his lover began softly to laugh.
Lana sniffed, 'Why is that and why would it be any of your business?'
Viljoen rolled his eyes as if the questions were too preposterous to answer. Dumi, instead, answered for him. 'Because, countrywoman, you've got it so bad for our ‘fearless leader' that we can practically smell you getting wet every time he gets close. Trust me, Dani and I are both pretty good at discerning such things. It's part and parcel of the whole gay thing.'
Lana bridled. Her face grew red. She sputtered, 'That's . . . that's . . . that's . . . '-her moral outrage collapsed, suddenly. 'Oh, shit, what am I going to do? He hardly knows I exist.' Then she remembered a perceived
