shoulders, but didn’t think he’d been seriously hurt. Quickly spilling the air from his canopy, he pulled the quick- release snaps on his harness and began to unpack his weapon. All around him, he could see other jumpers landing and doing exactly the same thing.
“Campbell, you all right?”
It was Vernon Deerson, his fire team’s SAW gunner, scrambling over on his belly. He was already wearing his NVGs and had mounted an AN/PAQ-4C “death dot” on his weapon.
“Yeah,” Campbell said, also keeping his head low. His eyes searched the night as he rolled onto his side, got his M203-equipped M16 out of the carrying case against his left thigh. He’d heard the crackle of a machine gun from the rooftop of a nearby terminal and was trying to get a solid fix on its position. There was another burst of fire. Louder. Closer. And then another sound. A revving engine. “I think… ” Then headlight beams suddenly swept through the darkness and they both hugged the ground. A pair of jeeps had rounded the corner of the building, engines growling, the Guatemalan gunners in back raking the tarmac with fire as they came speeding toward the two paratroopers.
While the squadrons of USAF Hercules troop transports were nearing the DZs, the Gator Navy’s Amphibious Squadron Four — composed of the USS
At its present speed, the ARG would elude the majority of the enemy’s naval defenses, but it was nonetheless certain to encounter
Under house arrest in his living quarters on the second floor of the building, Prime Minister Carlos Hawkins exultantly sprang off his chair, his spirits lifted by the sound and fury outside his window.
“Hey!” he shouted to the armed guard outside his door. “Come on, open up, I’ve got an important message for your
The door opened a crack and a soldier in a Guatemalan uniform looked in at him.
“Okay, you listening close?” The soldier nodded. Hawkins grinned and leaned his head toward him. “Tell Guzman I hope the
As the onrushing jeeps sped closer, their machine gunners chopping out a vicious hail of fire, Deerson propped himself on his elbows. Spying the target through his night-vision goggles, he swung the red aiming dot of the PAC-4C on his SAW onto the front of the lead vehicle, and squeezed off a short burst. The weapon kicked against his shoulder, gobbling 5.56mm ball ammunition at a rate of almost 1,000 rounds per minute. The windshield of the jeep shattered in an explosion of broken glass, and the jeep went into a screechy, fishtailing skid, the wheels leaping off the road as the driver veered toward a large industrial Dumpster. An instant before the vehicle smashed into the Dumpster’s metal side, Deerson triggered a second laser-aimed volley that sent the gunner flying from the rear of the vehicle, his combat fatigues drilled with bullet holes.
The second jeep was almost on them when Deerson heard the
Captain “Wild Bill” McCarthy had been absolutely correct — the Guatemalans did indeed “put up a hell of a fight” for the airports, but it was a losing battle from the very beginning. Within just a few hours after the American and British paratroop units made their drops, both airfields had been captured from the vastly outnumbered enemy force. Scattered encounters persisted until dawn as the airborne troops seized runways, cleared terminals and hangars, and swept the offices, hallways and stairwells of every building. The heaviest flurries of resistance came at the perimeters of the airports, where the Guatemalans had set up roadblocks and artillery emplacements along approach and exit routes. The British and American paras, however, were skilled at night fighting, and had been given extensive practice in assault maneuvers prior to the mission being launched. This was training that gave them a crucial edge over their opposition. Though scores of Guatemalan infantrymen were killed in these firefights, and hundreds more taken prisoner, only two Americans and one member of the British 5th were fatally wounded as the paratroops overran the barricades using a variety of infiltration and urban combat tactics. The last of the Guatemalan troops at the airfields were neutralized shortly after 5:00 A.M.
By daybreak, both airports were declared fully secure, with rifle and artillery units setting ambush positions along the very avenues of approach they had cleared. Now that the airports had been taken, the paras’ job was to hold them and let the airhead develop behind them. It was a sure bet the bad guys would want them back.
The Guatemalan jeeps, tanks, LAVs, troop haulers, and cargo trucks rumbled toward the airport in a long, slow-moving line, kicking up streamers of dust that drifted sluggishly above the semi-paved road. The terrain on either side rose in low, thicketed bluffs, with shaggy fingers of tropical growth creeping downward from their slopes, barely shying from the hard track. Concealed by the foliage, a platoon of the 82nd’s 3/325th Alpha Company intently watched the convoy approach the kill zone. They had been lurking in ambush since dawn.
As he steered over the pockmarked road, the driver at the head of the procession was telling his partner about some good whiskey he’d looted from a Belizean resort near the coast. He was also telling him about a beautiful desk clerk at the hotel whom he had his eye on. She’d said she wasn’t interested and that she was engaged to be married. However, he intended to have his way with her regardless of what she told him. As soon as they finished off the Americans at the airport, he would get back to that hotel and show her what he thought of her refusal. He was about to tell his passenger exactly
The air shuddered with an incredible blast, catapulting the jeep driver from his seat, the explosion sucking the scream from his throat. The jeep lurched wildly forward, its tires rupturing in squalls of rubber as hundreds of fragments sprayed from the mine and went tearing into them. All down the line, vehicles slammed each other with grinding metal-on-metal shrieks. An instant later, Alpha Company opened fire, hitting the convoy with everything they had. Machine guns, combat rifles, 40mm grenades and 60mm mortar rounds, as well as Predator and Javelin antitank missiles, streaked from the flanking brush. The Guatemalans desperately began fighting back, pounding the embankment with their own substantial armament.
