Mexican Heat (Nick Woods Book 2) (6 page)

The
reserve force waited on a base twenty minutes from the Presidential Palace. A
full battalion of additional soldiers -- a thousand men -- comprised the
reserve force and upon getting the call, they began forming up and grabbing
their gear, piling into tarp-covered heavy trucks and roaring toward the area.

Back in
the bunker, the assistant head of security then used his radio to request a
status report from each position on the perimeter. He still didn’t know yet
what had happened -- whether it was a car bomb, a rocket attack, or a grenade.

Death
approached slowly, as only a mortar barrage can. In a world of super-sonic
weapons, the high-flying and slow-falling mortars were hardly the sexiest of
weapons. But it was their high arc and nearly vertical descent that allowed
them to clear walls and buildings between them and the target; these things
that blocked direct fire weapons like machine guns and missiles proved no
obstacle for their indirect fire. And it was this nearly vertical arc that
caused such destruction.

Buildings
have strong walls. Tanks, thick armor. Yet neither has reinforced ceilings or roofs.
Hit them from the top and they crater and implode like an icing-covered cake.
And on this night, the buildings and vehicles in the Presidential Palace proved
no different.

Flores’s
men only had basic ammunition -- High Explosive M374s, which had been given to
the Mexican Army by the United States -- but it didn’t matter. The nine-pound
shells exploded with such force that none of the structures stood a chance.

They came
in an almost continuous wave just seconds apart, each round landing in a
different area as the gunners moved their sights incrementally after each round
left the tube.

Ten
rounds per tube. Twenty rounds total. A crescendo of explosions that seemed to
never end. Buildings blew apart. Windows shattered. The Presidential Palace ate
three rounds that tore through its roof and exploded inside it like a pressure
cooker blowing its lid. Even the Presidential limo -- the real one, not the two
decoys -- took a hit to its trunk. Despite the thick armor along the sides, it
blew the back end completely off.

But the
mortars claimed more than just buildings and vehicles. Guards in bunkers and
those who had responded to investigate the first two shots were caught in the
open by the explosions. Many caught shrapnel in chunks varying from the size of
a pocket knife to smaller bits the size of a dime, all of which cut through
them like shotgun slugs.

Each
round had a bursting area of thirty by twenty yards and there was little left
untouched in the ten-acre compound. And while men in the perimeter lay curled
up with their fingers in their ears, praying they might survive the next
impact, the RPG team watching from the apartment raised their rockets.

The three
men targeted the Presidential Palace -- not so much for the men they might
kill, but more for the permanent scarring their rockets would cause. Each man
aimed at the walls between windows -- what good would a round fired through a
window cause in a Presidential Palace that was mostly deserted at this time of
night? They fired with alarming accuracy. At this distance, and with such wide
walls to hit between windows, none of them missed.

They
blasted gaping holes into the walls with delight, and in the fury of the mortar
barrage, it wasn’t until their final round that they were noticed. A guard on
the line saw the flash of their firing and yelled out the position to a man
near him before swinging his M240 medium machine gun at the spot.

He loosed
a burst -- more than ten feet off the mark -- and reoriented more accurately.
Inside the room, the men had pulled back from the window and were packing up
when the next set of bullets came flying into the room. Two of them took nasty
hits before diving to the ground and crawling out.

On the
line, with the mortars no longer falling, other guards heard the friendly
machine gun roaring in the night. And though they didn’t know the target, they
could see the tracer rounds tearing into the apartment building across from
them. First one, then others joined in to help suppress what must have been a
serious threat. After all, they had just sustained the most potent attack any
of them had seen. And while none of them could see targets, it was better to be
safe than sorry, and so they began spraying wider and wider into rooms
throughout the building.

The four
men who had started the carnage by firing the RPGs assisted each other as they
carried themselves out of the building, exiting the far side with their duffle
bags and weapons.

Chapter 6

It took
hours to determine the full extent of the damage.

President
Roberto Rivera waited inside a conference room. He’d changed out of his pajamas
and now three hours after the attack, he wore khakis and a polo. He’d shaved
because if ever the country needed to see a solid, capable man, it was today.

Yeah,
right, he thought. He was standing in a conference room and he had two
suit-wearing Secret Service members standing to each side of him. They carried
submachine guns slung across their chests and wore thick assault vests
outside
of their suits.

Hell, why
stop there? Rivera wondered. Why didn’t they just put on helmets and hook a
couple of grenades to their gear?

Outside
the room, twelve more men waited; these men didn’t bother with the decency
associated with wearing suits. Instead, they wore camouflage full battle gear
including helmets and full-size assault rifles. Rivera wanted to dismiss them,
but it would do no good. The entire Presidential Palace Compound was covered
with men: armed soldiers, firemen, and EMTs.

It was
just impossible to look in control when the place had been bombed out to the
level of Sarajevo. Fires had burned for nearly a half hour before security
allowed the firemen to fight them, and now Rivera was learning that the attack
on the Palace was just a small portion of the disaster.

A
tired-looking advisor stood wobbly before him, unshaven and too shaken for
Rivera’s dwindling optimism.

“Sir, we
lost them all,” he said.

“Grab
some coffee and explain,” Rivera said.

“Sir,
we’ve sent police out that way. The entire convoy was wiped out! All the men
dead!”

Rivera
took a step toward the advisor and wrapped his hand around the back of his
neck. He shook him lightly a couple of times.

“Control
yourself and pull it together.”

Suddenly,
another suited man barged into the conference room. “Sir, we must issue a
statement. News agencies from across the world are demanding a statement.
They’re calling it a coup attempt. They’re saying you were killed.”

Rivera
looked over at a high-ranking American from their Embassy, who sat in the
corner of the cramped room. Shaking his head in disbelief.

“Of
course I’m alive. Look at me,” he said holding his arms out. “Do I look dead?
Or injured? Or like I’m fleeing the country?”

Rivera
sighed, his anger on the verge of exploding.

“Forget a
statement from me. Just stall them. Tell them we’ve suffered a setback. We’re
evaluating what happened. We don’t know how many casualties we have. We’ll
bring the killers to justice. You know the deal. Get the hell out of here and
make it happen. I have too much to do to be worrying about issuing a
statement.”

The man
turned and left looking embarrassed. Another took his place.

“Mr. President,”
the man said. “The Mexico City Police Chief wants to meet and discuss their
findings.”

“Not
now,” Rivera said. “Get out. Everyone out. I want everyone out now.”

The room
-- filled with aides, advisors, and military officers, far too many for Rivera’s
comfort -- quickly emptied.

Mexican
President Roberto Rivera wasn’t the only elected leader trapped in a room
filled with too many government types. Twenty-five hundred miles to his
northeast, the president of the United States sat in a remarkably similar
situation, but with far less sense of panic.

“What the
hell happened?”

It was 9
a.m. and he had his CIA Director, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of
State, and the National Security Advisor in a room, along with their deputy
directors, aides, intel analysts, and who knew who else; nearly two dozen folks
in all.

It was
more than the President preferred to have in a room for a top-secret meeting,
but the Directors would all share the information with aides anyway -- usually
as soon as they left the room -- so what did it matter? And besides, half the
department heads didn’t know the information they were supposed to be on top
of, so the President had learned to just get the info straight from an analyst
or aide who did -- completely unfiltered, and immediately, instead of waiting.
Plus, he could ask questions of them this way and get a more honest look at
what was really going on.

Apparently
in answer to his question of “What the hell happened?,” an Army major stood and
clicked a handheld pointer that lit up a projector.

“Mr.
President, the Defense Department worked with the CIA and the State Department
to pull together this update for you. It’s our combined analysis as of now, but
I must warn you that information is still pretty sketchy. It’s coming together,
but we’re not there yet. Here’s the gist of what we know, though.”

The
President nodded impatiently and the major clicked a screen that showed a
smoking, battle-scarred Mexican Presidential Palace.

“Sir, at
approximately 3 a.m. this morning, the Mexican Presidential Palace came under a
devastating attack. It began with a mortar barrage that included a significant
RPG rocket attack, as well.”

The major
clicked to an aerial view that showed impact craters dotting the landscape. The
aerial view also offered a better perspective of the damage from the widespread
mortar attack. Vehicles were wrecked, buildings still smoldered, emergency
crews blanketed the area.

“Jesus!”
the President said. “How many rounds were fired?”

“We’re
not sure, Mr. President. But it was enough to suppress the entire defending
force and we’re estimating as many as fifty rounds right now.”

“How does
that happen?” the President asked, looking over at the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The
four-star general cleared his throat and said, “We’re not sure of their firing
location yet, sir, but we’ll know soon enough. We’re measuring the impacts and
trying to determine the caliber, which would give us the range of the mortars.
At this point, we think the assault force used 81 mm mortars. Once we’ve
confirmed that, we’ll find where the mortars were fired. That should lead to
some intel and hopefully some witnesses. But the short answer to your question
is this: All you would need is men to secure a perimeter, and then about six or
eight guys to fire the mortars. And obviously you’d need the mortars, but those
wouldn’t be too hard to get.”

The
general saw the President raise his eyebrows with alarm, so the general added,
“At least not in Mexico.”

“Mr.
President,” the major said, trying to get the briefing back on track. “The news
gets a bit worse unfortunately. The man in charge of protecting the President
managed to get him and his family to safety. That’s the good news. But, eight
guards were killed and at least forty were wounded in the barrage.”

The
President shook his head but felt relief that the news wasn’t worse.

The Major
saw this reaction and wondered how to bring up the next part. He didn’t earn
enough money to deal with this kind of stress when it should have been the
Joint Chiefs of Staff briefing the President.

“Sir,”
the major said. “That wasn’t the bad news. The bad news is the guards on the
line spotted the RPG firing position and those guards engaged.”

The major
paused, uncertain, and the President leaned forward, waiting.

“Well,
sir, other guards along the line joined in. They’d been getting pounded pretty
bad by the mortars and had seen a lot of men go down or get cut in half. And,
well, they fired a hell of a lot of rounds before they finally got under
control. I figure they must have really been shaken. And we’re talking
thousands of rounds here.”

The
President seemed exasperated. “Just tell me, damn it.”

“Sir, the
RPG position was in a five-story apartment complex that overlooks the
Presidential Palace. And Mexican forces killed at least fifty civilians in
their return fire. Maybe as many as eighty. And at least a hundred more were
wounded. These people were piled in pretty tight in this apartment complex, and
the emergency services and hospitals were completely caught off guard by so
many casualties. So, a lot of people died who shouldn’t have. In fact, we’re
still not sure how many actually did die. They’ve enacted triage operations and
have yet to even get identities or a firm number on how many patients they’re
even treating.”

“Did they
get the men who fired these RPGs or mortars?” the President bellowed, slamming
his fist on the table.

The major
didn’t have it in him to answer and looked to his boss, the four-star general.
The Joint Chief looked to the President and nodded “No, sir, they didn’t.”

“They
found some blood trails,” the general said, “but the blood was mixed with those
of the civilians, so we don’t think the Mexican forces killed any of their
targets.”

“Ho-ly
hell,” the President said. “I thought we were training these men. Spending
billions each year and sending them weapons. We’re doing this year after year
and apparently they can’t even defend their Presidential Palace or hit what
they’re aiming at.”

The Joint
Chief shrugged, and a couple of people reached for coffee mugs in complete
embarrassment.

“What are
we going do?” the President asked.

“Sir?”
The major was speaking again. The President looked at him, clearly annoyed. The
Major would have rather been back in the mountains of Afghanistan dodging
rounds than meet the President’s stare, or say what he was about to say.

“Sir,
there’s more,” he said, but paused to wait for permission.

“Go on,
son. Spit it out! We don’t have all day.”

“Sir, at
approximately the same time, Mexican forces were accompanying an American SEAL
Team on a mission to take down a drug cartel warehouse. We’re still not sure
what happened, but we lost contact with the SEAL Team and we’re pretty sure we
lost them.”

“Lost
who?” the President asked, still annoyed. He wasn’t overly concerned with how
many more Mexicans were killed. He had a more pressing thought on his mind.

“The SEAL
Team Platoon,” the major said.

“What do
you mean we lost them? Don’t they have GPS’s and weapons? I seriously doubt
they took down a SEAL Team. Now you’re just being pessimistic.”

The
President looked over to the Joint Chief, a man he considered too old and
pessimistic anyway. But the man looked sick to his stomach and the President
knew it was true.

“How do
we lose a god-damn SEAL Team?” he said leaping to his feet and slamming both of
his fists into the conference table. “These are the best men we have!”

“Sir,”
the major said, “we’re still not sure yet, as the snipers we had on the target
site have not been found yet. They’ll know for sure, but aerial reports from
helicopters we had in the air show that the entire building that the SEALs were
assaulting exploded and collapsed on the SEAL Team once they were all inside.”

“Are we
digging them out? How many survivors are there?”

“Sir,”
the major said, his eyes on the ground, unable to meet the President’s. “Sir,
we’re not even on the location yet. A quick reaction force of Mexican troops
sent to reinforce the SEAL Team raid was ambushed and completely wiped out. And
these men were in Humvees with heavy weapons. We’re not sure how many were
killed in that ambush, but it was probably another fifty. And we also lost a
helicopter, sir, to a ground-to-air missile. We’re afraid to send more aircraft
to the area at this time, so we’re not sure how many SEALs may be alive,
whether the aircrew may be alive, or whether our snipers were able to escape
the area.”

The
President returned to his seat and leaned back, stunned. And his pressing
thought returned. His re-election effort was just kicking off, and he knew that
more than likely, his campaign was over before it had even started. He sat
there in complete shock. A SEAL Team Platoon? An entire SEAL Team Platoon?
Dead? It just didn’t seem possible, and yet it had happened. And with their
deaths, his re-election bid was almost certain to fail.