Airborne (1997) (60 page)

While the squadrons of USAF Hercules troop transports were nearing the DZs, the Gator Navy’s Amphibious Squadron Four—composed of the USS
Wasp,
USS
Whidbey Island
(LSD-41)
,
and USS
Iwo Jima
(LPD-19) escorted by the USS
Leyte Gulf
(CG-55), USS
Hopper
(DDG-70), and operating with the USS
John C. Stennis
(CVN-74)—had come surging around the fluke-shaped Yucatan Peninsula, and then skirted the outer bounds of Cuban territorial waters to enter the Caribbean Sea. The huge, forty-thousand-ton
Wasp
was steaming toward its destination in the lead, its decks and hangars alive with activity. Behind a dimly lighted console in the
Wasp’
s Combat Information Center (CIC), Captain William “Wild Bill” McCarthy, commander of PHIBRON 4, sat watching his multi-faceted sensors and display screens, as personnel at separate terminals across the island /bridge monitored and processed a torrent of communications and reconnaissance information from a vast range of sources.

At its present speed, the ARG would elude the majority of the enemy’s naval defenses, but it was nonetheless certain to encounter
some
hostile patrol boats. Though McCarthy was confident they would present only a minor hindrance to his battle group’s forced entry of Guatemalan waters, he was anxious to get past them and move into position for the amphibious /helicopter assault’s kickoff. He knew that aboard
John Stennis
a brigade of the 101st Airborne “Screaming Eagles” were readying their attack choppers for essential air support of the parachute units inland. He also knew that the enemy would put up one hell of a fight for the airports, and that this counterattack would come by morning’s first light. He was bound and determined to have an unpleasant surprise waiting for Guzman’s forces when that happened.

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
commandante
!
”

The door opened a crack and a soldier in a Guatemalan uniform looked in at him.
“Sí,”
the guard said. “What is it?”

“Okay, you listening close?” The soldier nodded. Hawkins grinned and leaned his head toward him. “Tell Guzman I hope the
Yanquis
give his arse a hard, bloody
pounding
!
”
he said.

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
bloop!
of Campbell’s tube-fired 40mm HE grenade separating from its cartridge case, glimpsed the tiny silhouette of the projectile out the corner of his eye, and then saw the shell arching down over the jeep. The 40mm fragmentation grenade detonated in midair just inches above the open-topped vehicle, its explosive charge blowing the frag liner and converting it into a cloud of shrapnel that ripped into the jeep, penetrated its gas tank, and sparked its fuel lines to rupture in a dazzling blister of flame that incinerated both riders before they knew what hit them. Without wasting a second, Campbell and Deerson sprang to their feet and rushed into the darkness side-by-side, eager to link up with the rest of their platoon.

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
how
he would show her when the leader of the hidden airborne ambush team squeezed the clacker of his remote detonator, setting off a camouflaged anti-vehicular mine that had been planted inches from the center of the road.

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.

Convinced his team needed a helping hand, Alpha’s commander ordered his radio man to call in for air support on his SINCGARS radio, which automatically began transmitting the team’s location to a GSS satellite receiver. Within minutes, a quartet of OH58-Delta Kiowa Warriors launched from the deck of the USS
John C. Stennis,
the Screaming Eagles of the 101st having arrived with their naval escort earlier that morning. Their electro-optical MMS “beachballs” occasionally poking above the treetops, they flew towards Alpha’s coordinates in nap-of-the-earth flight, and came buzzing down on the crippled Guatemalan mech unit with Hellfire missiles and 2.75”/70mm rockets flashing from their weapons pods. Evacuating their devastated armor amid a shower of flame and burning debris, the Guatemalans signaled their surrender with flares, frantically waving hands, and any white shreds of cloth they could find.

The formation of four F-15E Strike Eagles had flown non-stop from Mountain Home AFB in Idaho in two four-ship formations, accompanied by a group of two F-16C Fighting Falcons, and two F-15C Eagle fighters as escorts. The Strike Eagles were armed with a full combat load of laser-guided bombs, AGM-154A JSOW guided cluster bomb dispensers, LANTIRN targeting pods, and air-to-air missiles. In addition to carrying their own mix of air-to-air ordnance, the Fighting Falcons each bore a pair of HARM anti-radiation missiles and a sensor pod for targeting them. Their mission had been planned in precise detail and was highly specific: They were to level a Guatemalan army headquarters located about five klicks southwest of the nation’s capital. At the same time, other strike groups would be taking out a host of designated military installations in and around Guatemala City, as well as Army and Naval bases throughout the country. Airstrips, leadership targets, and communications centers were the prime focus of these operations, and a painstaking effort had been made to keep collateral property damage and civilian casualties to a minimum.

Jinking to elude the light flak coming from below, the lead aircraft’s pilot lined up the rooftop of the headquarters building in his HUD, monitoring the various readouts superimposed over the display’s infrared image. The weapons systems officer in the backseat had already activated the LANTIRN pod to range and lock on the target. All that remained now was for the pilot to release his ordnance. Ten seconds later he dropped bombs in two rapid salvos. The headquarters building went up in a rapidly unfolding blossom of flame that could be seen as far as thirty miles away in bright, broad daylight. Mission accomplished.

Within a matter of hours, the Guatemalan forces in Belize had either surrendered or were in full retreat, headed west for the border. In fact, the biggest problem that the Allied forces were having was keeping up, so rapid was the retreat of the invaders for home. The Guatemalan Army had never had much stomach for this adventure, and the overwhelming show of strength had broken them immediately. Already, the port and airfield facilities were pouring forth a torrent of follow-on forces that were being flown in. At the same time, the Belizean government had been liberated by units of the Army Delta Force, which had flown their AH-6 “Little Bird” helicopters to the Government House from the rear deck of the USS
Bunker Hill.
For Belize, the damage from Guatemalan looting and pillaging had been minimized, mostly because they had not been given the leisure time that Iraq had been given in Kuwait. As it turned out, this was a good thing for everyone involved. Except, that was, for the Guatemalan leadership that had survived the airstrikes.

The riots had been going on for days. General Hidalgo Guzman sat behind a broad oak desk in his executive office, the blinds drawn over the windows overlooking the square, the windows themselves tightly shut to dampen the angry clamor below.
Days,
he thought, staring down at the desk blotter, down at the loaded 9mm pistol he had slid from his shoulder holster and placed in front of him on the desk blotter. Days ago, he’d believed he was on the verge of attaining near-boundless wealth: a king’s ransom for himself and economic prosperity for his country. The perfect equation for holding onto power. He would have been a modern Cabrera, a bringer of light, a lordly figure whose stature would eclipse the three towering volcanoes on the national crest.

Then the airborne invasion had come, and his cousin, Eduardo Alcazar, had advised him to declare an unconditional cease-fire with the Americans and begin his withdrawal from Belize. Guillardo had advised against it, stating that favorable terms might yet be negotiated. Now both men were dead, having perished together in a bombing that had killed three other members of Guzman’s junta as well. They were dead, and much of Guatemala City was in ruins from the burning and looting that had followed the air strikes, and the mob outside blamed him for the destruction. Blamed him for the casualties the armed forces had suffered. Blamed him for the political isolation into which his country had fallen.

He could hear them in the plaza, shouting up at him, cursing his very name, demanding that he resign as President. But for a few loyal guard units, the army had joined their rebellion. He could hear them, yes. Their voices loud through the windows, so deafeningly, maddeningly loud out there in the plaza. It was only a matter of time before they came for him. His surviving Cabinet Ministers had fled the capital, advising him to join them, to remain in a hideaway until a means could be found to exit the country.

Guzman looked at the gun on his desk blotter and reached for it. Outside, he could hear the mob. He was no rodent. Not a lowly, fearful creature that would burrow down into a hole in the ground. He could now hear the mob calling for him, crying out for his blood. He would not cower.