If those helicopters were hostile, these people wouldn’t have a chance.
He stepped out into the street, scanning the hills above the city. There. He squinted for a moment, then turned to Quintana. “Get one of your most trustworthy lieutenants and get half these guys up to the police station. Herc will go with them. Have them report to Wade and get ready to defend it. The rest of us will move to the plaza and the mayor’s house.” He hoped that the sudden silence meant that his Blackhearts had taken the two centers of gravity in the city. Since neither Wade nor Flanagan had called for help over the radio, that was probably a good guess. Sometimes no news really is good news. Neither man would have let themselves get pinned down or outflanked without calling for support.
“What if those are Colombian helicopters?” Quintana asked, even as he started dividing the mob of volunteers up.
“They might be. The Colombians do have Mi-17s, if I remember correctly.” The helos were still a good distance away, but the profile was unmistakable. “But so do the Venezuelans, and those birds are coming in from the north.”
Quintana’s face turned grave as he looked up and noticed that, as well. Brannigan gripped his shoulder. “It’s not over yet. We don’t know who they are. Get your people moving; we’ll set in defenses and if they’re friendlies, we can stand down. If they’re not, then we keep fighting.”
He didn’t say that the odds were stacked against them if the Venezuelan Army had decided to enter the fray. Ten mercenaries, a couple dozen cops, and a bunch of eager but untrained and inexperienced irregular volunteers wouldn’t last long against even the less-than-impressive National Army of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
Maybe they wouldn’t need to hold for long. Maybe with the Venezuelans making the first move by invading Colombian territory, they’d only have to defend themselves until the Colombian National Army responded.
But a lot of them would still be dead by that point.
They were committed, though. If they gave up the city to the Venezuelans, they may as well pack it in. And then their allies would probably all be slaughtered.
His face set with grim determination, he headed uphill, toward the plaza.
***
Wade had reacted quickly when he’d heard the helos, before even setting eyes on them. He knew enough about their situation that he didn’t immediately trust anything, and knew that without comms, they had to assume that the incoming forces were hostile until proven friendly. He’d seen too many green-on-blue or blue-on-blue incidents brought about through simple lack of communication to think that it was in any way time to relax.
“Get everyone under cover. Vinnie! Get up here and get on a window! I want that belt-fed in place to cover any approaches to the building!” He glanced around, but nobody had any smokes. Flares. The cops have to have flares or something. He started downstairs, looking for the police gear room.
He was just starting to dig into the lockers when he heard his radio crackle. “Angry Ragnar, Shady Slav. Coming up from the southeast with a large group of friendlies. Watch your fires toward the street.”
“Roger. Police station’s secure. Bring it in.” He glanced up as he thought of something. “Be careful of the wreck in the gateway—it got shot up pretty good, and it might be leaking fuel.”
“Copy. We’re moving in pretty quick—looks like those helos are about two minutes out.” There was a pause, and then Javakhishvili’s voice turned grim. “Be advised, they’ve got Venezuelan roundels on their tails. They are not friendlies.”
Wade just grinned wolfishly. “Then we get to kill some Venezuelan regulars. Dead Communists are dead Communists. I’m not choosy.”
***
Galvez had waited until he saw the helicopters moving in over the mountains above the city to make his move.
He was certain that Clemente had called the Venezuelans as soon as he’d realized just how badly the entire war was going. In fact, Galvez was sure that he’d called them as soon as the assault on the Galán farm had failed.
It only went further to prove that Clemente wasn’t the man to lead the revolution. If he was even still alive.
Galvez was still determined to snatch victory out of this disaster. His plan was still nebulous, but if he could at least retake the mayor’s house, he might be able to work things out with the Venezuelans. They didn’t want to control this part of Colombia, after all, but simply to spread the Revolution, just like he did.
It had taken entirely too long to round up a decent attack force, and even now, he was getting sidelong glances from some of the hardened FARC fighters who had responded to the call. They’d been on the way for the last several days, filtering down out of the camps in the Norte de Santander Depot, drawn by Clemente’s call for reinforcements. But their leader, a mustached man known only as Fabian, had been decidedly unimpressed by what he’d seen so far, and hadn’t hesitated to express his opinion.
Galvez was already considering how he might kill Fabian without triggering an instant mutiny from the other FARC fighters.
He and his small, fifty-man assault force had watched from a hill on the south side of the valley as the growing crowd of local volunteers
