none of them would go running to the authorities. What if they want to run to the authorities now?
Simple, we lock anyone who balks in the containers they don't know about, the ones Chin set up . . . the ones with the bars. We can hold as many as fifty that way.
And no hard feelings. Anybody who doesn't want to stay in needs the excuse of being held against their will. What's the most they could be charged with then? Illegal possession of personal firearms in Brazil? No one's going to extradite for that. Well, I don't think anyone will.
Least of my problems, anyway. What if the planes break down? What if the helicopters do? We've run the landing craft kind of hard these last couple of months. What if they break down? What if they break down when we've got half the force ashore?
Fuck, fuck, FUCK.
Konstantin and the Russians? How do I know I can trust them? Boxer thinks they're solid, that the old man in the Lubyanka wants that Yemeni punished and no more. Oh . . . I suppose I can trust Boxer's judgment on such things. And we will have Victor Inning, the old man's son in law, as a hostage. That counts for something.
Once ashore? Fuck. There are so many things that can go wrong ashore I don't even want to think about it. Reilly fails? . . . Well . . . no. Reilly won't fail. Neither will Cazz. Unless, of course, the armored force near Rako doesn't fall for the bait. What then? Shit.
Then I tell Reilly 'Move to contact and destroy them.' He'll get butchered, of course. But I wouldn't bet on his not winning anyway. Though he won't be going after the town with what he'll have left.
Stauer had a sudden image of a headline in the New York Times. 'Mercenaries Massacred.' And wouldn't the bastards be popping champagne corks over it, too.
And what am I going to say to the men? What if . . .
D-29, MV
The open area that was normally used for a mess hall was packed. Only those absolutely essential to running the ship weren't present, and those Kosciusko had briefed separately. The men had listened quietly, as Stauer went through the operations plan. From their faces, he didn't detect any real problem with that side of things. Then he'd turned it over to Bridges for his part of the show.
'And those are the legalities of the thing,' Bridges finished, after briefing the company on just that. 'Colonel?'
Stauer stood up and walked back to the podium as the lawyer vacated it. 'All right,' the colonel said, 'now you know. And now you've got a decision to make, each of you. It's too late for us to just let you go if you want out. You know too much, as they say.
'So here's the deal. Anyone who wants out, who isn't willing to face the legal consequences or the combat can opt out now. We've got some reinforced containers, with running water and latrines, cots and all that shit. You'll go there and you'll stay there. You'll still be paid the base monthly rate until the operation is over, but you won't get the combat rate.
'Make your decision, now.'
'Told you they'd stick, sir,' Joshua gloated, as Stauer forked over a hundred dollars. 'Gotta know people in our business. At this point, on the one hand, a lot of 'em want their combat pay. On the other, a lot of 'em feel that they were already as guilty as sin and actually going through with the thing won't add six months to anybody's sentence. That's not the big thing, though.'
'No?' Stauer asked.
Joshua shook his head. 'No, sir. Most of the men didn't really give either a second thought. They'd signed on for action, action was promised, and they, by God, intend to have what they signed on for.'
As the sergeant major put the money away, he felt a tap on his shoulder. George was standing there with his hand out. 'I believe you owe me fifty bucks, Sergeant Major,' he said.
'Why's that, George?' Joshua asked.
'Because she's moved into his quarters,' the first sergeant said. 'That's a tight fit unless he manages to occupy some of her very personal space, don't you know.'
D-28, MV
The sea lanes were still pretty crowded here, far too much so to break out weapons to test fire, or rehearse the more complex dance of reconfiguring to launch aircraft and land grunts. Indeed, it was extremely important, for the nonce, to look and act as innocent as humanly possible.
This didn't mean there was nothing to do. Below, among the hidden decks and compartments, groups of men clustered around sand tables holding models of men and boats, terrain features, buildings, towns, harbors . . . even a few fake trees made from lichen for those few places that trees were important. Stauer moved from table to table, listening, watching, occasionally offering bits of advice and less frequently giving directives.
Some of the terrain boards and models were incomplete and always would be. Welch's team-himself, Grau and Semmerlin, snipers who would bear large caliber, silenced, subsonic sniper rifles, Graft, a machine gunner, Issaq Abay and Haayo Abdidi, Marehan tribe translators who had made it through jump and weapons training in Brazil, Pigfucker Hammel, Ryan, Little Joe Venegas, Buttle, Dalton, and Mary-Sue Rogers, detached from the SEALs-neither had nor could have had more than the slightest idea of the interior layout of the building that was their objective.
Stauer watched Terry's team take turns moving the toy soldiers representing themselves across the features of a small scale palace built to a large scale model. Abay and Abdidi seemed fully integrated to the thing, even dropping out and taking on others' jobs as the rehearsal went into variables like people being hit.
'You've got a problem,' Stauer said, after calling Welch aside.
'What's that, sir?'
'Anyone can take over for anyone else on your team, correct?'
'Yes, sir; everyone knows everyone else's job and weapons.'
'No they don't,' Stauer corrected. 'Your two translators are a potential point failure source. Yes, you have two to allow for a backup. But your plan has them both exposed to full risk, even after one of them gets hit. That, you can't permit.'
Terry thought about that for a second, then another fifty-nine or so. 'So if I lose one, I've got to immediately wrap the other in thick bulletproof gauze before continuing.'
'I think so,' Stauer said, 'since there isn't and never was a chance of making your entire team conversant in the local language.'
'Right. We'll change the plan then.'
'Stout lad,' Stauer said. 'Be proud of you if you had figured it out for yourself.'
Across the deck, Konstantin's boys did much the same as Welch's. They had a related problem in that they really hadn't more than the most general written notes on the internal layout of the much larger palace that was their objective. No more than Welch's could Konstantin's team-himself, Baluyev, Litvinov, Galkin, Musin, and Kravchenko-know the rooms, corridors, and entrances of their target, in Yemen. The Russians had one advantage in this; they had a spy who was expected to guide them once they were on target.
Though the Russian team hadn't changed since long before Myanmar, there'd been a number of minor personnel changes over the months, and more in the last couple of months and weeks. Terry had had to detach Buckwheat to accompany Wahab on strategic recon. A three man supplementary team had been built to send to those two. This consisted of Rattus and Fletcher, reinforced by Sergeant Babcock-Moore on the not impossible chance that some demolitions could be required for their mission. Terry, understrength even for Myanmar and freeing Victor Inning, had picked up two translators, plus a number of others to create one full strength team,
