“We have to attack now. We can hit them from behind as they are disorganized and looking at the Venezuelans. We’ll take the mayor’s mansion, fortify it, and then once the Venezuelans have cleared the rest of them out, we can negotiate the rest.” He was sure he could work that out—he’d fought alongside the Venezuelans before. The solidarity of the Revolution was important to them, too.
He got up and ran down the hill toward the handful of trucks they’d gathered to make the assault. Time was short.
***
Flanagan met Quintana and Brannigan at the plaza. Some of the locals, seeing many of their neighbors gathering around the fountain with weapons, had started to come out of their houses and apartments. Quintana’s cops were trying to convince them that it still wasn’t safe, pointing to the circling helicopters overhead. Some had seen the birds and immediately sought cover again. Others were still getting it through their heads.
But when automatic fire erupted from the street to the south, a lot of them figured out that the danger wasn’t past.
Unfortunately, it was too late for some, as several of them were smashed lifelessly to the cobblestones in a welter of blood. The screams were almost drowned out by the gunfire.
Brannigan turned, dashing to the corner of the mansion and dropping to a knee, bringing his Galil to bear and searching for targets. Two ancient Land Cruisers were hurtling up the street, with Green Shirt fighters leaning out the side windows, spraying bullets at anything that moved.
Then Curtis opened fire from the roof.
He didn’t have a lot of ammo left for the Negev, but bullets chopped into the hood of the lead vehicle, walking up into the windshield and smashing into the driver. A faint adjustment drove the last of the burst across the windshield and into the passenger.
Brannigan took a shot at the man leaning out of one of the rear windows, but the man had ducked inside just as the Land Cruiser swerved and bounced over the curb to smash into a storefront on the side of the street.
The lead vehicle was screwed, but the Land Cruiser behind it braked hard and skidded to a stop. The Green Shirts bailed out and scrambled to cover in and around the surrounding buildings, still spraying fire up the street toward the plaza. Brannigan had to duck back as bullets smacked plaster off the mansion’s wall above his head.
More fire erupted off to the west. The Green Shirts were trying to flank them.
***
Flanagan and Gomez had already faded around the corner of the mansion, working their way around to flank the Green Shirt assault, so they had just slipped away from the plaza when the flanking attack opened fire.
When Flanagan took a knee for a second to assess the situation and glanced back, he saw that Hank had joined them, racing along the street and skidding to a halt behind Gomez, pivoting to cover the north. He pointed his Galil toward the Mi-17s that were still circling above. “How the hell are we supposed to fight more Green Shirts and the Venezuelans?”
“The Venezuelans aren’t on the ground yet. Worry about the Green Shirts for now.” Flanagan got up and moved toward the next corner. “Mario. High-low?”
Gomez nodded. “I’ll go high.”
Flanagan took a knee and leaned out around the corner, while Gomez stood above and behind him, leaning out at a slightly different angle. Both men came around and brought their weapons to bear at almost the same moment.
The men clustered around the ancient Ford at the next corner a block away, dumping fire toward the mansion and the plaza, didn’t look like Green Shirts. They were dressed in woodland camouflage, with black tac vests and black and green berets or woodland boonie covers. They blazed away down the street with an M60 and half a dozen AKMs.
They weren’t wearing the red, yellow, and blue armbands, but Flanagan had seen enough photos of the FARC’s pseudo-uniform to be pretty sure he knew what he was looking at.
Neither he nor Gomez hesitated. As soon as they identified their targets and found their sights, they opened fire.
Flanagan shot the M60 gunner three times, smashing two rounds into his side before the third punched through his temple. The thickset, mustached man fell over sideways, his joints gone loose, blood pouring from his shattered skull onto the machinegun.
Even as the FARC fighters realized that the flankers had just been flanked, Flanagan and Gomez raked fire across the vehicle, bullets punching into flesh and metal and shattering glass. Three more FARC gunmen collapsed, dead or bleeding out.
Two more, however, scrambled behind the dubious cover of the old pickup and returned fire. Long, stuttering bursts stitched the side of the building where Flanagan and Gomez had taken cover, smacking debris into their faces and forcing both men back around the corner.
Then one of the Mi-17s roared overhead, flying low enough that the rotor wash rattled the windows in the building. Hank tracked it with his Galil, though the rifle wouldn’t do much against the massive transport helicopter. Fortunately, it didn’t appear to have a door gunner.
But as it came to a hover over the intersection, the side doors slid open, and rappelling ropes spooled out. A figure appeared in the doorway, leveling an AK-103. More dark figures were moving behind him, preparing to rappel to the street.
Before the first man could descend, though, a delta-winged shape flashed overhead with a deafening thunderclap. The Mi-17 rocked as the Colombian IAI Kfir fighter’s sonic boom swept over it.
The two-plane flight banked hard over the eastern ridge and circled back around. The Mi-17 dumped the ropes and dipped its nose, pulling
