Kingsolving didn't reply.
"Kidnapper One and Two, Keystone Kop," Castillo said to his microphone. "I'm going to circle the ship at two thousand feet. Join up on me five hundred feet behind." [TWO] La Orchila Island Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela 0502 13 February 2007 It was just getting light as the three UH-60s approached the island.
Castillo estimated he would be on the ground in three minutes, give or take.
One of the 160th's Black Hawks following him would laser-target the commo building and report when it had done so, but would not fire until Castillo gave the order.
The other would hover over the airfield to the left of the hangar. It would be prepared to clear the tarmac in front of the hangar with its GAU-19.50 caliber Gatling guns if the Spetsnaz guarding them offered significant resistance.
Castillo had spent a good thirty minutes trying to impress on its pilots that a disaster beyond comprehension would occur if the fire from their weapons struck-which would virtually atomize-the blue barrels they had come to seize. He thought he had succeeded-the chief warrant officers flying the gunship were both veteran special operators, not excitable young men, and both wore the wings of Master Army Aviators.
"I wonder what General Buckner-or his father-would think of this?" Colonel Kingsolving said.
"Of what?" Castillo asked.
"Our assault on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. 'Bolivarian' makes reference of course to General Simon Bolivar, the great Liberator."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Senior, West Point Class of '44-Class of 1844-was a Confederate general. He was forced to surrender Fort Donelson, Kentucky, to his classmate, General Ulysses Grant. Buckner gave Grant his parole, and was later exchanged. I thought about that when you told me about General Naylor giving you his parole."
"Thanks for sharing that with me, Colonel."
"His son," Kingsolving went on, "General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Junior, Hudson High Class of '08, was the most senior officer killed in combat in the Pacific during World War Two. He was commanding the Tenth Army on Okinawa when struck by Japanese artillery."
Over their headsets suddenly came: "Keystone Kop, Kidnapper One. I have my laser on the target, acknowledge."
"Kidnapper One, Keystone Kop acknowledges you have target acquisition," Castillo answered.
"They are both, I believe, buried at West Point," Kingsolving went on.
"Well, maybe they'll bury us there."
"Keystone Kop, Kidnapper Two has a visual on armed and moving possible belligerents."
"Kidnapper Two, Keystone Kop acknowledges you have visual on possible belligerents. Hold fire until I clear. Acknowledge."
"Kidnapper Two acknowledges hold fire."
Kingsolving said, "I'd rather thought you'd prefer interment beside your father in the National Cemetery in San Antonio."
"If those Spetsnaz waving those Kalashnikovs at us start shooting them, we're both probably going to be buried right here," Castillo said, and then, remembering what Sweaty had said the night before, added: "After we're displayed on a table, like Hugo Chavez's hero, Che Guevara."
He waited another two seconds, then said, "Kidnapper One, engage, engage."
He then switched to the intercom to alert Berezovsky and his four ex-Spetsnaz waiting in the back of the UH-60 with Mexican federal police markings.
"Dmitri, we'll be on the ground in three seconds. Ve con Dios."
He heard what he had said, and thought: I'll be goddamned-I meant that!
Go with God, Dmitri!
Jesus H. Christ! Are Sweaty and her brother turning me into a believer?
He saw the exhaust flare from the first Hellfire missile race through the air, and then from another, and then from a third.
There's not going to be much left of that communications building.
Castillo then touched down, and immediately unfastened his seat/shoulder harness.
"Try not to get shot moving over here to the pilot seat," he said, and then he was out the Black Hawk's door.
He reached back in and grabbed his Uzi, then went quickly around the nose of the helicopter, passing Kingsolving as he did.
Castillo found that there was a sort of a standoff on the tarmac.
Dmitri Berezovsky-with his four ex-Spetsnaz standing behind him, more or less holding their weapons at port arms-was facing a half-dozen men wearing the striped shirts of the Spetsnaz armed with a variety of weapons.
"I asked, who's in charge?" Berezovsky said more than a little arrogantly.
And then there was a female voice.
"Lower that (expletive deleted) muzzle, you (expletive deleted) moron!" former SVR Podpolkovnik Svetlana Alekseeva shouted. "What the (expletive deleted) is wrong with you, raising a weapon to Polkovnik Berezovsky? Are you as (expletive deleted) stupid as you look?"
The muzzle was lowered.
One of the Spetsnaz stepped forward, saluted, and said, "Major Koussevitzky, sir."
"Stefan," Berezovsky said. "I didn't recognize you."
"Good to see you again, Polkovnik. May I ask what…"
"We are here to arrest General Sirinov," Berezovsky said. "Where is he?"
"In the hangar, sir."
"I regret that the circumstances require that I take your arms," Berezovsky said. "Lower them to the ground."
"You are here to arrest the general, Polkovnik?" Koussevitzky asked softly.
"I regret that is necessary, but I'm sure you know why."
Koussevitzky considered that a full twenty seconds before he unstrapped his pistol belt and let it fall to the ground, then put his Kalashnikov automatic rifle on the tarmac.
"You heard Polkovnik Berezovsky," he said to his men. "Lower your weapons to the ground."
Berezovsky waited until the order had been complied with, and then spoke to one of the ex-Spetsnaz standing behind him.
"Have those weapons put aboard the helicopter," he ordered, and then turned to Koussevitzky.
"Take me to the general, Stefan," Berezovsky ordered. Then he pointed to Sweaty, to one of his ex-Spetsnaz, and to Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo, USA (Retired), and said, "You, come with me."
Castillo said, "Yes, sir" in Russian, hoping he didn't sound like a Saint Petersburg poet of indeterminate sexual orientation.
The Tu-934A was inside the canvas-walled and -roofed temporary hangar. So were four very small travel trailers being used as makeshift barracks. As they walked toward the trailers, General Sirinov came out of one of them. He was dressed but he needed a shave.
I guess we woke the sonofabitch up.
"General, consider yourself under arrest," Berezovsky announced.
"I don't know what you think you're doing, Berezovsky," Sirinov said.
He seemed to be unfazed by what was happening.
"Please turn around and put your hands behind you," Berezovsky said as he took a plastic handcuff from a pocket.
"I will not."
Sweaty, holding Max on his leash beside her, walked up to him. While doing so, she took her Colt.32 ACP model 1908 from her pocket.
"And the beautiful Svetlana," Sirinov said. "Wherever did you get that absurd uniform? And that dog?"
"Turn around, Yakov, and put your hands behind you," Sweaty ordered.
"Or what? You'll shoot me with your toy pistol?"
Sweaty aimed her toy pistol quickly, and shot General Sirinov in the right foot.
He looked at his bleeding foot, then screamed with the pain and fell to the ground, looking up at her in enraged disbelief.
"Roll onto your stomach, Yakov, or I'll put the next round into your other foot," Sweaty said.
Max growled.
General Sirinov rolled onto his stomach.
Berezovsky knelt beside him and applied the plastic handcuffs.
Sirinov was moaning in pain.
"If you don't give me any more trouble, when we're on the plane I'll give you some morphine," Sweaty said.
"Where are the pilots of the airplane?" Berezovsky asked Koussevitzky.
Koussevitzky pointed to one of the trailers.