The Hamlet Warning (6 page)

María Elena didn’t move. “I want it clearly understood that I’m going under protest, that I consider myself a political prisoner.”

“Your uncle has invited you to be his honored houseguests,” Loomis said. “You can call it what you want.” 

Chapter 7

Minus
10
Days
,
13
:
14
Hours

By midnight, they were well past La Vega. They drove rapidly through the darkness, the Commando V-100 armored car in the lead. Loomis came next in the Olds, and Rodríguez was behind him in his Buick. Two army six-by-sixes packed with troops brought up the rear. The lieutenant beside Loomis in the front seat was relaxed, yet alert. In the back, the older boy, Raul, was dozing. De la Torre and his wife were awake, but silent.

Raul was thin and frail, just short of effeminacy. But he had his father’s quiet poise, dignity, and direct manner.

Juana was a larger woman than Loomis expected — not fat, but rather attractive and possessing an earth-mother plumpness. She wore her long, straight, black hair loose, adding to the image.

María Elena, the younger boy Fredrico, the girl Nina, and the maid were riding with Rodríguez. After the initial encounter, María Elena chose to ignore Loomis’s existence.

Loomis was unable to relax. Some sixth sense kept his tension high. He concentrated on the driving, focusing on potential trouble spots. 

They had entered a stretch of forest along the rugged slopes of the Cordillera when it happened.

As they rounded a curve, the Commando V-100 armored car ahead suddenly erupted into a brilliant ball of orange flame.

Instinctively, Loomis knew there were no survivors. He doused the Olds headlights and skidded off onto the shoulder, taking the car deep into the wide barrow ditch. Behind him, Rodríguez’s reactions were equally fast. The Buick skidded to a stop behind the Olds. One truck shot past, then skidded crosswise the road with a squeal of brakes. The other halted behind them as a rear guard.

“What happened?” De la Torre asked. His voice had a trace of excitement, but no panic.

“Probably a recoilless rifle,” Loomis said. “An antitank weapon.” He punched the switch that unlocked all the door latches. “Everyone pile out behind the car and lie flat.”

The soldiers were leaving the trucks, jumping from the endgates, deploying for positions. The rebel automatic weapons opened fire. Machine pistols and something heavier, probably an FN Minimi light machine gun.

The soldiers, illuminated by the burning armored car, made good targets. Loomis saw at least six fall.

Rodríguez came running up to the Olds. Loomis hunkered down with him beside the car. “We can fall back,” Rodríguez said. “We’re only about six kilometers beyond the
estancia
of …”

“No. I think that’s what we’re expected to do,” Loomis said.

He walked to the back of the car and opened the trunk. As the lid swung up, he reached in and unscrewed the bulb. He took out his Swiss SIG SG551, and a half-dozen clips, jamming them into his jacket pockets. He loaded the automatic rifle, levered a round into the chamber, then stepped up onto the trunk of the car to study the road ahead. The Commando V-100 was still blazing furiously. The roar of the flames filled the night with sound and illuminated the edges of the forest around them. Loomis was certain the eight men inside the car were dead.

Beyond the burning vehicle, he could see a network of logs and brush. The sporadic gunfire was coming from each end of the barricade, and from positions flanking the road. The soldiers were returning the fire, but probably without much effect. From what Loomis could see, Ramón’s men seemed dug in well.

Loomis figured that the main force was on the road behind them, waiting in ambush. He was so certain, he thought it best not to send a probe in that direction. The longer Ramón’s main force remained uncommitted, the better the odds.

For a moment, Loomis considered flanking the barricade and circling through the trees to attack from the rear. With that small force wiped out, perhaps they could run the barricade. But the maneuver would take time. Ramón’s other group no doubt would hear the fire-fight and come up to take part. There also was the threat of the recoilless rifle.

Loomis remembered the advice of a general long dead: if you’re ever in doubt between two courses of action, they’re probably both wrong; think up something else.

He stepped down from the car and took Rodríguez to one side. “I figure Ramón’s got us blocked fore and aft,” he said. “We can’t risk a pitched fight. Not with the family. We can’t get help here in time. Not at night. We’ll have to do the unexpected. I’ll take the family straight into the woods. You can keep Ramón busy about thirty minutes, then pull in behind me. You know the location of the old Navárez Plantation?”

“Roughly.”

“I figure it’s about six miles from here. I’ll radio and get some birds in there to dust off at daylight with the family. By then, we should have help by highway from either Santo Domingo or La Vega. We’ll turn back on Ramón, and our relief will be behind him. Maybe we can sandwich him like he’s trying to sandwich us.”

“Beautiful,” Rodríguez said.

“I’ll take six men with me, if you’re agreeable,” Loomis said. “Along with your radioman and a couple of Minimis. If we run into anything, we’ll lay down a barrage, and you can come running.”

The De la Torre family huddled in the ditch behind the Olds. Loomis squatted beside them while he waited for Rodríguez to send the soldiers. The light from the burning armored car had faded, but Loomis could see Rodríguez running along the far side of the road, positioning his men. The firing was now scattered.

“We’re moving into the forest,” Loomis told De la Torre. “We could probably hold out here until help comes, but I don’t want to risk it. There’s a clearing about six miles from here. We’ll have helicopters waiting there.”

De la Torre nodded. His eyes showed concern, but no fear. Behind him, María Elena and Raul were nestled together, their arms around each other. Juana was holding the younger children flat, protecting them with her body.

When the soldiers assigned to point reported to him, Loomis gave them instructions to move out and break trail, with the heavy-weapons men flanking. He told them that if they made no contact after two or three hundred yards, they could risk flashlights held low to the ground.

“And you stick with me like glue,” he told the radioman.

Rodríguez and his men opened a diversionary barrage, and the soldiers trotted into the woods. Loomis waited with the family until the soldiers disappeared. He figured that if Ramón had them flanked, the perimeter would be less than a hundred yards. When the soldiers apparently met no opposition, Loomis followed with the family, carrying the younger boy piggyback. De la Torre carried Nina.

Loomis let the soldiers stay well out in front, the faint glow of their hooded flashlights barely visible. The radioman, Loomis, and the boy led the second group, with María Elena, Juana, and the maid in the center. Raul, De la Torre, and the girl followed. Three soldiers lingered back as rear guard.

Once they were away from the road, and their eyes became accustomed to the night, they made good time. Although the quarter-moon was low on the horizon behind them, the sky was cloudless, and enough starlight penetrated the trees to distinguish shapes. There was no wind. Despite the relative coolness of the night, they soon were sweating from the exertion. Loomis stuck his extra ammo into his belt, peeled off his light jacket, and threw it away. As they moved farther from the road, the ground became more level, but fallen limbs and underbrush made footing difficult.

A little more than a mile out, Loomis called a halt. He handed the boy to Juana and knelt by the radioman. Through army headquarters in Santo Domingo, he managed a telephone link to Bedoya at the
palacio
. He switched to English.

“Listen, Squirt, I’m in a jam,” he said. “Ramón hit us in force.”

For once, Bedoya seemed worried. “Where are you?” he asked.

Loomis gave him the coordinates. “Get three birds into the old Navarez Plantation at daylight,” Loomis told him. “Bring Rodríguez’s men some ammo. I think the site will be clear, but they better check it out before they go in. They can hose it down with a gunship or two. Tell Colonel Escortia I suggest moving a company toward us from the capital along the road. They’ll find a burned weapons carrier where we were hit. There should be a plain trail for them to come in behind us.” 

“El Jefe has ordered that the army not leave the capital in less than battalion strength,” Bedoya pointed out.

“Well, Escortia can bring a whole fucking battalion, then,” Loomis said. “I don’t care. Right now we could use them.”

“Hokay, Captain,” Bedoya said. “The cavalry is on the way. See you at daylight.”

Loomis secured the radio. María Elena was watching him. “Why don’t you wave your pistol at Ramón?” she asked.

“I plan to,” Loomis told her. “Just as soon as I get you people on that whirlybird.”

The woods behind them were now silent. Loomis fought his inclination to turn back to find out what had happened. They moved on westward.

After they had walked another mile, they began to hear intermittent firing again some distance behind. It continued off and on for the next two hours. From the sounds, Loomis estimated that Rodríguez was doing his job, harassing Ramón’s advance with occasional solid stands at strategic points, then retreating.

Less than a mile away from the clearing Loomis heard two explosions. Claymores, or reasonable facsimiles, he guessed. Since Rodríguez wasn’t equipped with heavier weapons, Loomis feared the worst. After a breathless moment of silence, the night erupted into a sustained battle no more than a thousand yards away.

Ramón obviously was making a determined effort to intercept them before they reached the landing zone.

They arrived at the clearing thirty minutes before dawn. Loomis spread the soldiers in a close perimeter. He gathered the family in a shallow ditch where they lay flat, ready to make the dash to the helicopters.

Then they waited.

The gunfire to the rear hadn’t slackened perceptibly. Loomis was certain that Rodríguez would be running low on ammunition. He wondered how long he could hold out. They badly needed the help of the gunships.

Loomis waited impatiently, often checking his watch. Then, through the canopy of trees to the east, he saw the first solid pink tinge of daylight. And no helicopters were in sight.

The gunfire seemed to be growing nearer.

Loomis moved to the radioman, knelt, and put through a call to Bedoya. “We’re here,” he said. “Where are the fucking birds?”

“On the way, Captain,” Bedoya said. “Sorry we’re late. We’ve had some complications. Nothing serious. Just a small war.”

Loomis had suspected that Ramón’s attempt to kidnap or kill the De la Torre family might be a part of a bigger plan. But he hadn’t allowed his mind to dwell on it.

“The
palacio
?” he asked.

That, as his responsibility, was his first concern.

“Safe so far,” Bedoya said. “We’ve only had terrorist stuff, but plenty of that. Sniping all over town, and satchel bombs. Some kind of plastic, C4, maybe. One at the main gate of the
palacio
. Another at the Palacio de la Policía. Two at armed forces headquarters. And another here and there. We’ve got about fifty dead and twice that many injured, probably.”

“No solid fighting anywhere?”

“Not in the
distrito
, unless snipers are trying to control some sections. But we’ve had reports of pitched battles in San Francisco de Macoris, and some activity in Santiago. Everything’s still sketchy.”

“Escortia have help on the way here by road?”

“If they don’t run into anything, they’ll be there within three hours. Escortia’s afraid of a trap — an ambush or mines. He has told them to take it slow and careful.”

The sounds of battle were definitely much closer. Loomis could see Rodríguez and his men retreating toward him through the trees.

“We can’t hold out here much longer,” Loomis told Bedoya. “The gunships might make the difference.” “We should have you in sight within two or three minutes,” Bedoya said. “There’s only two of us. We lost one gunship right after takeoff — clogged fuel lines, probably sabotage. But the pickup bird and this gunship seem all right.”

“What about the ammo?”

“Right here,” Bedoya said. “I see something — smoke — up ahead. I think we’re coming up on you.”

Loomis saw them before he heard them. They approached rapidly, low over the distant trees.

“We’re in the shallow ravine at one o’clock relative,” Loomis told Bedoya. “Take your gunship and hose down the area seventy meters or so beyond that big dead tree. Might make your trip worthwhile.”

“O.K., Captain,” Bedoya said.

The copters chattered over, so low they raised dust. The pickup bird banked back to assess the landing zone, hovering. Bedoya’s big Huey opened up, pouring .50-caliber machine gun bullets into the trees, the gunners walking the fire streams with tracers.

Rodríguez and his men took advantage of the barrage and fell back once more, hunting better cover. Rodríguez came toward Loomis, running low, limping. His right leg was bathed in red from thigh to ankle. He sprawled beside Loomis. The stench of cordite hung heavy in the air.