and the interruption caused by the dead mercenary's body falling on the machine-gun crew, however, allowed the others in the group hustling Alaman along to clear the bridge and reach the airfield.
There, Childress found the pilots of two helicopters in their aircraft preparing to depart while the guards at the airfield were gathering in the hangar. Running to the nearest helicopter, he ordered the pilot to wait for Alaman. At the next, he told the pilot to wait for him. The second pilot, clearly shaken, reluctantly agreed. Childress next made for the hangar. In his haste, he hadn't noticed the rucksacks stacked up and secured in the helicopters.
At the door of the hangar he saw Jean Lefleur, leader of the group charged with protecting the airfield. Lefieur, a veteran of the French Foreign Legion, did not like Childress and resented the relationship he had with Delapos.
As Childress came up to him, Lefleur leaned against the doorframe.
Out of breath as much from excitement as from exertion, Childress came up to Lefleur and began to issue a string of orders. Lefleur listened in silence as Childress told him to send two reliable men with Alaman and his two men in the first helicopter, while Lefleur led the rest, on foot, north to escape and rally at their old training site, where he would meet Delapos and whatever men managed to escape from the firelight still in progress in Chinampas. Finished, Childress waited for Lefleur to act.
The sudden appearance of Childress, with Alaman in tow, put Lefleur in an awkward position. If he did as Childress instructed, then he and his men would not have the helicopters to escape in, as Lefleur had been preparing to do. Yet, if they did escape without Alaman, they wouldn't get paid. While he pondered his options, Lefleur stalled, looking down at his fingernails, casually asking if those were Delapos's instructions or Childress's.
Suppressing a desire to smash Lefleur's face with the butt of his rifle, Childress replied that they were Delapos's orders. Then, so that the other mercenaries gathered about Lefieur could hear, Childress warned Lefleur that unless they got Alaman out safely, not only would there be no pay, their chances of getting out of Mexico alive without Alaman's contacts would be nil.
For a second, Lefleur considered killing Childress where he stood.
That thought, however, quickly passed. After Childress's comments about the need to save Alaman in order to get paid, Lefleur had no way of knowing how his men would react. Therefore, Lefleur opted to take the safest option. Still, he was determined to maintain the show that he was in charge. Looking about for a moment, Lefleur paused before he turned to his assembled men. 'You two, into the helicopter with Senior Alaman.
The rest of you, grab your rucksacks out of the aircraft and meet me over there, at the base of the hill. Bring only food and ammo, no personal items. Now, move.' When the men had scattered, he looked at Childress, an arrogant smile lighting his face. 'Satisfied?'
Too angry to respond, Childress simply turned and ran to the helicopter he had told to wait for him. Before he got in, he watched his men and Lefleur's bundle Alaman into the other helicopter. Only after they were off did Childress climb in and order the surprised pilot to fly into the courtyard of Chinampas.
Impatiently, Guajardo watched the engineers he had found in tower 5 carry out his orders. After blowing a hole low to the ground at the base of the tower near the gate, the engineer sergeant and Guajardo noted that the smoke nearly obscured the garage wall, only a few meters across from them. Cautiously, the sergeant stuck his head out of the hole to see if his men could low-crawl out without'being taken under fire from the barracks.
Satisfied that it was possible, he yelled back for one of his men to follow, then went through the hole to the gate without pausing.
Though they worked quickly and efficiently, to Guajardo the efforts of the sergeant and his engineer to return to the safety of the tower before setting off the charge appeared slow and clumsy. From the base of the tower, Guajardo watched the engineers moving back and forth from one side of the hole to the other. Only after the sergeant and his engineer had returned and the cord to set off the demolitions to blow the south gate had been pulled, did Guajardo realize that some of the men he had sent outside the wall might be on the other side of the gate.
As the fuse burned its way to the demolitions, Guajardo cursed his own stupidity while he prayed his haste wouldn't result in the death of any of his own men.
The roar of the explosion, followed a few seconds later by a shower of debris, announced that the south gate was gone. Even before the remains of the gate stopped falling, Guajardo was up and running for the opening.
Once he was in the clear, he looked about, relieved that there were no dead or wounded Mexican soldiers on the other side. This relief was short-lived, however, when he heard the sound of a helicopter leaving the airfield. Although he hoped that it was Group N finally arriving, in his heart he knew it was Alaman leaving. The flash of a red and white Bell 206 helicopter confirmed his fear.
Dejected, Guajardo stood there, watching the helicopter disappear. All of his efforts, all of the sacrifices of his men, everything, was for naught.
Chinampas might be gone, but what it stood for still lived. And so long as Alaman lived, he was dangerous.
As if to underscore his failure, Guajardo watched as a single Army helicopter coming in from the east landed at the abandoned airfield and disgorged Group N troops at exactly 0716.
Lost in his own dark thoughts, Guajardo missed the final act of the day's drama. Knowing that Delapos would never be able to make it across the bridge, Childress ordered the pilot to land in the courtyard. Both he and the pilot realized that they were in as much danger from friendly fire as they were from the Federales. Still, Childress was counting on the fact that the surprise of a helicopter landing in the courtyard would buy them enough time to get Delapos and a few men out.
What Childress couldn't know was that he had more than surprise on his side. Guajardo's order that sent most of the men outside the walls, coupled with the engineers abandoning tower 5, had left fewer than six Mexican soldiers in positions that could fire on the courtyard. Rather than a meat grinder, the courtyard was probably the safest place at that moment for the mercenaries.
The unexpected appearance of the red and white helicopter dropping into the center of the smoke-filled courtyard worked as Childress had expected. The Federales, unsure of whose helicopter it was, ceased fire.
On the other side, in the barracks, Delapos knew immediately what Childress was up to. Without a second thought, Delapos turned to the men in the room and yelled for them to make for the helicopter.
As soon as the mercenaries came out of the barracks, the few soldiers left in the house began to fire on them, but not on the helicopter. While Childress fired out of an open window at the house, Delapos threw the rear door of the helicopter open and jumped in. After two other men piled in behind him, he yelled to the pilot to go.
For a moment, there was a panic as another mercenary jumped in and a second, missing the door, grabbed the skid of the helicopter. Others, midway between the barracks and the departing helicopter, stopped, watching the helicopter lift off. Seeing that they had been abandoned, the remaining mercenaries turned around to run back to the barracks.
The soldiers, fully recovered from their surprise, fired at the exposed mercenaries. None, however, fired on the helicopter, or the mercenary hanging onto its skid. As quickly as it had appeared, it was gone.
With all hope gone, those mercenaries still in the barracks, towers 3 and 4, and the stable decided they had had enough. So too had the soldiers. It was as if the final free-for-all in the courtyard had satisfied their lust for killing. This time, when the mercenaries appeared with their hands up, no one shot.
Chinampas was finished, but Senior Alaman, Guajardo's real target, was not.
7
Man shall be framed for war, and Woman for the entertainment of the Warrior. All else is folly.
