Countdown: M Day (17 page)

In an intimate conference room in one of the rear wings of this Stalinist monstrosity, high enough and far enough back to keep at bay the sounds of the dense traffic below, a couple of mid-level bureaucrats pondered what should on the face of it have been a nonproblem: Deliver the arms or don’t and, whichever, so what?

“Except that refusal to sell is, in this case, as bad as selling,” said one of the two.

“I don’t understand,” said the other. “What difference does it make?”

“The attaché in Caracas says that Chavez is planning on occupying that part of Guyana Venezuela has claimed for the past couple of centuries. It should be easy, he thinks.”

“And?”

“Well …if we send arms to Guyana, Chavez will be pissed off. And he is not only one of our two or three best customers, but he’s a serious annoyance to the United States. Or, at least he tries to be, has been, and will become so again as soon as the current American president is turned out of office.”

“So refuse to allow the arms to be sent.”

The first bureaucrat shook his head. “Not that simple. Refusal to sell, when we have no particularly good reason not to sell, might put Guyana on notice that they’re on Venezuela’s shopping list. This would be as bad for Chavez, or worse, than if we’d delivered the mortars.”

“Ah.”

“‘Ah.’”

“I think I have a solution. What did you say that request consisted of?”

Boeing 767, El Al Flight LY 054 (Johannesburg to Tel Aviv)

The food on Emirates was better,
Victor thought, staring down at a barely touched tray of kosher something-or-other.
The stewardesses were better looking too, even if they weren’t authentic the way these girls are authentic Israelis. Oh, well, can’t win ’em all.

None of the stewardesses would look him in the eye, and most of them avoided him like the plague.
I suppose it’s the Hassidic outfit. Some of those people are worse than Arabs for their disgust for women. Silly sots.

Menachem Begin Road, Tel Aviv, Israel

Victor and his best Israeli contact, Dov, were seated, as usual on the rare occasions they met, at a table pushed flush against the railing surrounding the outdoor café portion of an eatery that fronted on the main thoroughfare. Between traffic, pedestrian talk, and the hubbub from the other patrons, no one was likely to hear anything said between the two men. Even so, they stuck to Russian as being somewhat less likely to be understood, and considerably more likely to be misunderstood, than the English they also shared.

“That’s just too expensive, Dov,” Victor insisted, shaking his head and causing his false curls to swirl about his face. “There’s no way …”

“Can it, Victor,” the Israeli responded, holding up one hand, palm towards the Russian. “The …items you want are not simple, nor cheap, nor easy to make. Neither are they particularly easy to disappear—which is what my company will have to arrange for, with another company, no less—if we’re to get them for you.

“These things are made to be dropped from aircraft, high speed aircraft, Victor, then survive that drop, finish arming themselves, and have all their delicate little electronic components working perfectly. That kind of reliability, under those kinds of circumstances, doesn’t come cheap.”

Victor lowered his head to his hands, thinking furiously.
At the price he’s quoting, the redundant 105mm shells are just not enough bang for the buck. So what’s that leave me? Thirty-two purpose built, ex-Yugoslav M-70’s, and a thousand heavy mortar shells. And maybe we can get some explosive, some barrels, and gin up a better mine, if I have the fuse packages. Maybe. Hell, the fuses and sensors have always been the problem with these things.

“Six hundred,” Victor said, raising his head. “At that price that’s all I can afford.”
Which is bullshit, but he won’t know that.

“That’s bullshit, Victor,” Dov replied. “It may be all you have of bombs—you want them for bombs, yes?—but you and your organization can afford damned near anything, if you want to.”

“It’s all we can use then,” Victor conceded, neglecting to mention that, no, they didn’t actually have any bombs. “And one other thing. I need the exact specifications for the threading on your destructor kits.”

“That’s easy. You realize, right,” Dov asked, “that at that number the unit price goes up?”

“Yes, I realize that, Dov. Now, what can you come up with to turn a 105mm shell into a landmine. And don’t try to screw me on the price.”

Rosoboronexport, 21 Gogolevsky Blvd,

Moscow, Russian Federation

“So we can transfer the arms to Guyana, but we have to screw them on the deal?”

The assistant nodded, stopped, then explained, “No, we
must
transfer the arms to Guyana and screw them on the deal. Partially transfer them, that is. We’re supposed to send the shells and the guidance packages, but hold off on the actual mortars. ‘People pay little attention to ammunition,’ said the foreign ministry, ‘and much to real arms.’ I suppose there’s some truth to that.”

The senior of the two went silent, thinking. At length he said, “All right. Make the arrangements for the ammunition. Tell the military attaché in Guyana to tell the customer that the mortars need to be thoroughly rebuilt at the depot before we can forward them. ‘Sorry, sir, but we don’t have a firm date yet.’ But assure them the delivery will be made as soon as possible. After all, we have our reputation as arms-makers and-dealers to think about.”

“Where do we send the shells?”

“Trieste.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Elements within the British establishment were

notoriously sympathetic to. Today the enjoy similar

support. In the 1930’s it was Edward VIII, aristocrats

and the
Daily Mail
; this time it is left-wing activists,

The Guardian
and sections of the BBC. They may not

want a global theocracy, but they are like the West’s

apologists for the Soviet Union — useful idiots.

—Anthony Browne,
The Times,
1 August, 2005

Turkeyen Campus, University of Guyana, Georgetown, Guyana

In the green parkland west of the main campus, red flags the approximate color of blood waved above a sea—or at least a decent sized lake—of humanity. In that swaying, shimmering crowd, surrounded by the hundred and twenty-two people she had paid a thousand Guyanan dollars—about five United States Dollars, or a bit less—each to attend, Catherine Persons waved such a flag, herself. She’d actually paid a hundred and fifty people, but a few of those had taken the money and then quietly disappeared. For the rest:

Except for the students,
Catherine thought,
they have no revolutionary fervor whatsoever.
She laughed at herself.
Fervor? They don’t even have any interest. But it doesn’t matter. Interest will be provided.

It was, perhaps, not entirely without significance that the university had been founded under the auspices of the People’s Progressive Party, initially a hard left, but nationalist, group, which much later morphed into something recognizably social democratic. The PPP had been in power through most of the period 1966 to 1992, and continuously from 1992 to the present day. Nor was it insignificant that among those who had had been contacted for input into the recruitment for the initial faculty of the university was one Paul A. Baran, a Russian Empire-born, naturalized American citizen. Baran had the distinction of being the first neo-Marxist, indeed Marxist of any degree of antiquity, to claim that poverty in the Third World was not a natural condition, but had been introduced and deliberately fostered by capitalism. Marx and Engels would have been surprised by this revelation, of course. Even Lenin, who thought that the exploitation of the Third World was a mere artifact of the attempt to postpone the immiseration of workers in the industrialized world, might have been a little nonplussed. Indeed, any number of starving Indians, prior to the British Raj, might have been surprised to discover that they weren’t really poor and wouldn’t be until the introduction of capitalism in the West.

In any case, the university remained what it had been designed to be, a center for fairly hard left indoctrination, with a few high points where people actually tried to learn something useful to their own lives and to their country and people. In this, it was not notably different from most any American institute of higher education.

“Power to the people!” finished the final speaker for the morning’s festivities. His clenched fist shot up over his head, a sort of physical exclamation point.

With that, the red flags, carried by such as Catherine Persons, began moving to the south, where Dennis Street bordered that edge of the campus. The followers, both paid but unmotivated citizens and unpaid but motivated students, trooped along, generally in close company with the banner bearers. Mixed in were a number of better paid thugs, but their job wouldn’t come until a bit later. The initial echoes of “Power to the people” were rather badly out of synch. This improved, however, as the marchers caught their rhythm.

And,
thought Catherine, her band clustered around her,
the chants are better than a song, since almost none of these know the right songs. “Rise up ye victims of privation …”

Intersection, Sheriff Street-Dennis Street,

Georgetown, Guyana

Neither riots nor demonstrations were particularly uncommon here in Georgetown. Nor were the police ill-equipped or ill-trained for dealing with either. They did lack for certain items of major equipment, mobile water cannons were hard to come by, for example, and sundry high tech items that were just being fielded in Europe and the United States were just a dream at this point. Still, they were individually well equipped, and pretty well drilled, enough to deal with either demonstration or riot. Best of all, they had tear gas.

The trick, though,
thought police Sergeant James Cumberbatch, standing behind his thin line of riot-equipped constables,
is preventing the one from turning into the other.

Cumberbatch—like most of his men, tall and dark and rather thin—watched the approaching mass and tried to guess their numbers by the number of revolutionary flags they carried.

Too many, too thick, to count. Not good. Not at all good. Still, they’re orderly enough so far.

As the mass neared, and their chanting grew louder, both of Cumberbatch’s immediate subordinates, Corporal Singh and Lance Corporal Corbin, turned to glance his way, looking for a sign of confidence. The sergeant didn’t disappoint; his return smile said, “Routine, boys, just routine.”

Cumberbatch had set his line back about twenty meters from the intersection, just about where Dennis Street changed name to Lamaha Street. This was far enough back to provide a little reaction time, should the mob get unruly, but not so far back that the thin line of riot troops would fail to intimidate.

The sergeant breathed a deep sigh of relief when the point of the column turned south, along Sheriff, toward the Botanical Gardens. This was precisely where the marchers had said they were going—
For more pointless speeches, no doubt, right at Revolution Square
—and also precisely where the government wanted them to go. He relaxed still further when many among the mob waved or called out friendly greetings as they passed.

Moving at less than two miles per hour, the long and ragged column continued to pass. It slowed at one point; Sergeant Cumberbatch assumed because the point had reached Revolution Square, causing a backup. Still, his experienced ear didn’t pick up any of the changes in tone that would indicate a crowd’s mood growing ugly. Better still, the volume of the crowd’s chants dropped as the tail of the mass neared Cumberbatch’s station. Not that the chanting was any less enthusiastic; it was only that there were fewer mouths pointed in the sergeant’s direction.

Even better, the forest of flags had thinned to where Cumberbatch could actually see through their staffs to clear sky beyond. He turned around to address the men.

“Relax, boys,” the sergeant announced. “It’s almost ove …”

The sergeant’s words were cut off by a very large, very fast moving rock, that struck him on the back of his helmet, stunning him and knocking him to his hands and knees.

Square of the Revolution, Georgetown, Guyana

The square was doubly misnamed. It was not, in the first place, a square, but more of a spot, with a hideous monument to the failed 1763 slave rebellion, topped by a grotesque statute of its leader, “Cuffy,” stuck in the curve of Vlissengen Road, at the western end of a long park. Secondly, Guyana had never really had a revolution, being just one of those places that formerly imperial powers had decided weren’t even worth their time and sweat, let alone their blood, to keep direct control over.

Whether those decisions—perhaps better said, refusals to
make
decisions—had been correct was an arguable point. Indeed, the nascent nationalism Harold MacMillan had sensed across the Empire, though especially in colonized Africa, and which had given rise to his “Wind of Change” speech before South Africa’s parliament, in 1960, had proven ephemeral. If there had been any real Wind of Change it was not in the colonies, but in the hearts and minds of those in the West who no longer had the will to keep them “Wind of Change” would have been better and more honestly phrased as “Vacuum of Will.”

If there had been little or no true nationalism, antiimperialism there had been, of course. Still, once the imperialists had departed so went all the meat of it, barring only pointless rhetoric, as old colonies reverted to rule by tribes and clans, and the faux-Marxist ethnic dictators who depended on those.

Guyana, at least, had so far been spared the worst of
that.

Catherine Persons positioned herself and the flag she carried to place the latter between herself and the sun, about halfway down its arc, to the west. Others did likewise. She, like the other banner bearers, remained standing while the mass took seats on the grass around the square. Here and there local news types, and at least one team from one of the international agencies, stood under hastily erected canopies, with cameras on tripods.

A thin line of riot-equipped police arced around the square, on the far side of Vlissengen Road. They seemed relaxed enough, if no more comfortable than Catherine was, standing mostly in the sun.

The speakers from the university portion of the demonstration were going to be recycled to speak again, here, by Cuffy’s statue. It wouldn’t do to have them speak to only half a crowd, however. While the tail closed up and found seats, entertainment was being provided by one of Georgetown’s local bands. Catherine was a little amused to see the riot police tapping feet and swaying in time to the band’s music.

If she’d been amused, she was very surprised when the swaying and tapping stopped, and the police stiffened to attention and dressed their ranks. She was more surprised still when they began a cadenced advance, clear riot shields in front of them and batons poking past those. A few men behind the skirmish line held canisters in their hands she assumed were tear gas.

“This is bullshit,” Catherine said aloud. “We’re
peaceful,
not a riot.”

She cursed herself for a fool.
Why didn’t I bring my goddamned gas mask?

Inspector Isaacson stood relaxed, leaning against a patrol car parked on the north side of Brickdam Street, listening to the radio reports. It was all wonderfully and relaxingly routine until he heard:

“This is Corporal Singh …” In the background were screams punctuated by several shots, probably pistol shots. “Sergeant Cumberbatch and Lance Corbin are down …we’re under attack by the mob. They attacked out of nowhere …no reason …none at all. For God’s sake; help us!”

A few moments later came a call from a patrol car, giving its location as, “Vlissengen and Lamaha. The mob is armed and heading north. We are under fire.”

North?
thought Isaacson. Defense Force Headquarters. And arms. Shit.

From the west came the sounds of police sirens. Isaacson followed those by ear until he was sure enough that they, too, recognized the threat and were going to secure the GDF headquarters.
But the major threat—the major potential threat, anyway—is here, where the mass is.

We need to move them away from the center of town. If they want to run riot at the university, that’s their problem. But if I let the shops on Regent Street and Stabroek Market be looted, it’s mine.

With a rueful shake of his head, the inspector left the patrol car behind him, walking east to where he could give orders to the riot police to move the demonstrators out.

“Lawyers, Guns, and Money” (SCIF), Camp Fulton, Guyana

“How interesting,” Boxer said aloud, though he was the only one in the conference room watching the plasma screen on one wall. The screen showed scenes from Georgetown, to the north. Those scenes—riot and blood and arson—were live.

“What’s interesting?” Stauer asked, walking into the conference room and taking a seat.

Boxer didn’t turn his eyes from the screen, but just nodded in that direction. “Riot isn’t so unusual here. Riot on
that
scale
is
. And we didn’t have any warning. Apparently nobody in the government expected this.”

“It’s a pretty poor place,” Stauer answered. “Lots of discrepancy between the haves and the have-nots.”

“Yeah, sure,” Boxer agreed. “And that accounts for the demonstration and even some of the rioting. But as near as I can piece together, this is a different order of magnitude. Those people have guns, some of them, modern rifles. Where did those come from? In the numbers the police are seeing, anyway?”

“Got me. Where do you think?”

Boxer shook his head. “If I knew, we’d have tipped off the government. And they could have been bought locally, of course, but, if so, where did the money come from? No, I don’t know the answer to that, either. Bridges and his people are working the question. Still, the timing is suspicious, given everything else happening hereabouts.”

Stauer smiled. “You’re suspicious of everything.”

“It’s part of my job …or at least my training.”

“Fair enough,” Stauer conceded. “So what’s the purpose?”

Miraflores Palace, Caracas, Venezuela.

Hugo Chavez smiled at the screen. His was considerably larger and more expensive than the one in the Camp Fulton SCIF conference room.

Beautiful,
he thought, at the images of fire and destruction,
just beautiful. Now the gringos will cancel the visit of their own battalion to that mercenary group on
our
soil. That eliminates the chance of killing official gringos when we liberate the place. Better still, as long as we can keep the violence up, and there’s no reason we can’t, when we invade we can claim to the world that we’re there to restore peace. Definitely good public relations there. Best of all, we might even be able to get the idiots in their government to invite us in. Wouldn’t that be just lovely?

Chavez watched the screen with satisfaction for a few more minutes. Finally certain that that part of the plan was coming together nicely, he pressed a button on his intercom and said, “Marielena, there’s no real hurry on this, but fence some time in my schedule to visit the troops around
Ciudad
Bolivar and make the travel and security arrangements once you do. Don’t tell anybody anything they don’t need to know. No, not even your cousin, Mao.”