Final Bearing Read online

  Juan de Santiago stared at the choppers. He felt the heat of the flames they had set loose. He smelled the stench of the smoldering revolution this JDIA seemed hell-sent to destroy.

  “JDIA must be stopped! But how?” de Santiago muttered to himself.

  They had no idea where its headquarters might be, its communications facilities, or its leadership.

  De Santiago had been certain this series of fields, high in the Colombian Andes and down a narrow mountain valley, was safely hidden. No roads approached here. Only a steep path over the mountains that he and his bodyguard and a small cadre of his men had just hiked. Even the damned satellites should not have been able to find these fields. They were almost always shrouded in clouds.

  De Santiago's experts had told him that the ridge was too high for a helicopter to cross. The only way one could approach these high fields, they had maintained, was to wind their way up the narrow valley. That’s why the lookouts were deployed down that way. That’s why the thin but strong cables had been stretched across to snare them like a spider’s web should they venture up to the high fields. But the helicopters had unquestionably flown over the ridge three hours ago, dead certain of their target. They had come in fast, over the high ridge to the northeast, as surely as the sun had topped the mountains that morning.

  De Santiago’s proudest venture had been caught completely off guard. That was not the mark of a flawless operation.

  The surprise and the overwhelming firepower had been too much for the rebel peons who had been working in the fields. Most of them took to the jungle. The few who stayed to fight quickly gave their lives to the cause. The firefight was short and intense. The Apaches scurried back and forth across the valley, their 20mm chain guns beating out a staccato tattoo aimed at anything that moved.

  El Presidente's troops fast-roped out of the Black Hawks into the fields below, showing more professionalism than de Santiago had ever seen from them before. On the ground, the government soldiers fanned out smartly and efficiently to establish protected landing zones for the choppers that were still hovering overhead. By the time the first Black Hawk flared out to land, the fight was over. They set to torching the crop, shouting to each other and laughing like truant schoolboys up to some kind of mischief.

  “It is most difficult to kill a snake if its head cannot be severed,” de Santiago said aloud but to himself.

  Juan de Santiago and Guzman, his trusted bodyguard, had been approaching the nearest mountainside that overlooked the field, a half-dozen troops close behind. They followed the narrow trail to this serene, beautiful overlook, to observe the crop, to watch the peons work, to maybe smell the perfume of the orchids. They heard the attack as it began. They knew immediately what the hellish racket was. There was no mistaking the yakking of those guns, the rhythmic flutter of the ‘copter blades, the anguished screams of the brave peons. In awful frustration, he and the others had run to the overlook and watched most of the three-hour operation from the cover of jungle.

  De Santiago knew he was the most hunted man in all of Colombia. If those bastards down there on the valley floor only knew he was there, on the side of this mountain watching them the whole time, they would be in hot pursuit. They would not be laughing, boasting to each other of their victory. Now they climbed back into their helicopters and prepared to leave behind all the damage they had done. Not only to the crop, but to the people’s struggle.

  Spurred by their sniggering, de Santiago’s anger reached a new pitch. He stomped the ground again. Guzman could hear him grinding his teeth. He clenched his jaw even tighter as he spoke, forcing the words out one at a time as if he was biting them off and spitting them out.

  “I will show these damned dogs that I do not scamper away and hide in fright like a rabbit!”

  He spun on a heel and, in one quick motion, snatched the Starburst missile launcher from Guzman's back before the bodyguard even realized what was happening. He locked the optical sight on a Black Hawk down below that was just lifting off and pulled the launch trigger. Flame shot out the back of the launch tube, scorching the dense vegetation on the slope behind him while the troops standing nearby scattered to get out of the way.

  The British-made anti-aircraft missile burst out the front of the tube and flew arrow straight toward the hovering chopper. Despite his rage, de Santiago knew what he was doing. He kept the site locked onto the chopper as it rose and banked, ready to climb and head back over the ridge. He kept the reticule locked on, the launcher sending tracking data down the thin copper filament that still connected him to the missile.

  “Madre de dios!” the startled Guzman shouted.

  His leader's sudden crazy move had caught the seasoned warrior totally by surprise. Guzman…everyone knew him only by the one name…tended to always fight and defend using logic, and de Santiago’s totally emotional and completely illogical response to what he had been watching had been unexpected. Now, Guzman was forced to react instinctively, impulsively.

  He turned to see the scorched vegetation on the uphill slope smoldering, already sending up thin tendrils of smoke. He ripped off his campaign hat and began to beat out the flames before the Apache pilots with their infrared sights could spot the smoke and retaliate.

  At Mach 1.5, only two seconds elapsed from launch of the Starburst to impact. The hapless Black Hawk in the Starburst’s sights exploded with a deep whoomph, raining flaming wreckage down onto the still-smoking coca field.

  “Justice!” de Santiago whooped. “Let los diablos imperialistas burn in their own hellfire!”

  The two-second flight of the missile was more than enough for the Apaches. They were already facing that way and vectored in on the launch site. One of the choppers came roaring straight toward them. The chin turret, with its death-spitting twin chain guns, snapped back and forth like a cobra searching for its prey.

  Guzman didn’t hesitate. He grabbed de Santiago by the collar of his starched khaki shirt and leaped off the trail, over the bluff and down the steep mountainside.

  "Got to move!" he bellowed as they dropped into open space.

  Projectiles zipped past them and over their heads as the two men fell a good twenty feet straight down, then began rolling and tumbling. The thickness of the vegetation was the only thing that kept them from falling much farther and much harder. They finally stopped rolling. They were in a thick tangle of vines. Chewed-up leaves and tree limbs peppered down on them.

  De Santiago listened to the final screams of his slower reacting troops, the continuous buzz saw of the chain gun, and the guttural rumble of the helicopter, now directly overhead.

  It was finished. The patch of mountain where the rebel leader had been standing a moment before was now gnawed down to bare rock. What remained of four of his best men lay in bloody pieces amid the litter of the attack. Two others were cowering in the brush, checking their wounds. Down in the valley, the remains of the Black Hawk continued to burn fiercely while one of its brothers hovered above, checking for signs of life. Seeing none, it swooped up and followed the rest of the helicopters that were already disappearing over the ridge.

  “Damn them to hell,” de Santiago grunted under his breath as he shoved Guzman off the top of him. He fought through the ferns and vines and climbed out of the small ravine where they had landed. He took stock of himself. Nothing broken. Cuts and contusions but nothing that would not stop bleeding on its own. A knot on his forehead from a tree trunk he had bounced off on the way down.

  "You okay, El Jefe?" Guzman asked as he emerged from the wall of green. The bodyguard limped slightly but seemed all right otherwise. He looked at his leader, tilted his head, and ventured an unsolicited opinion. "That was a very foolish thing to do, you know."

  De Santiago’s rage flared once again as he turned on his bodyguard.

  "What would you have me to do? Would you have me run like a coward? Is that what you want? Look what those damned Americans have done. They will pay far more than one helicopter! I will make them
pay!"

  De Santiago stalked off, angrily slapping aside the vegetation. He followed the trail that led up from the field and over the mountain. Guzman shook his head. It was difficult for him and the other rebel troops to keep pace with their leader. Years of fighting in these cloud jungles had toughened the man, given him the ability to endure pain and weariness without even appearing to be aware of it. He never noticed that his best fighters and his rock-hard bodyguard often struggled to stay up with him.

  Guzman tried to ignore his twisted ankle and hurried after de Santiago before he was too far gone.

  “Catch up after you have buried the dead and bandaged the wounds of the others,” the rebel leader called back to him.

  The progress was slow. The two injured fighters lagged far behind. They climbed back up the mountain, beyond the tree line. Scrambling over rocks and scree, they came again to the pass over the mountain ridge.

  De Santiago paused there for only a moment. He glanced over his shoulder, to the west, and a strange calm seemed to come over him. He knew that from up here, from this high trail first blazed by his Inca ancestors, if it weren't for the clouds, they could see the ocean over two hundred miles away. A realization struck him. He was disgusted with himself for not having seen it before. As much as he loved his mountains, the leader knew at that instant that the key to all that he must accomplish rested out there, with the sea.

  He walked on, deep in thought.

  They stopped for a short rest in the saddle of the pass. A stack of rocks left centuries before by the Indians marked this high point on the trail. The two troops caught up, falling in their tracks, exhausted from the brisk climb and gasping for breath in the thin air. They checked their crude bandages. Guzman loosened the laces on his boot so the swollen ankle would have more room.

  “Does he never rest?” one of the soldiers asked, nodding toward Juan de Santiago.

  “No,” was Guzman’s answer.

  De Santiago paced back and forth, an odd look on his mud-smeared face, muttering crazily all the while. The other men tried not to look at him. They had never seen their leader in such a state.

  Mountains on either side of this narrow pass soared to over eighteen thousand feet. The wind whistled through the cut. It was bitter cold at this altitude, driving snow and bits of sleet at them. The rough trail clung to the side of a near vertical rock face. It would take very sure steps and nerves of steel to descend without falling a thousand feet to sure death.

  De Santiago turned and set off down the trail even faster than before. It was as if he had heard a call the others had missed. Guzman groaned and followed after him, favoring the ankle. The other two men looked at each other, then stood and obediently straggled along behind as best they could.

  Headquarters was another twenty miles away. Worse, sunset would come in less than an hour. Trying to traverse this trail in the dark would be suicide. De Santiago charged on, unaware of the danger or of the misery of his men.

  Guzman yelled at his leader’s disappearing back.

  "Wait! Slow down. We can't keep up. It's not safe." His words echoed off the cliff faces.

  The rebel leader seemed not to hear him. Guzman struggled to keep pace. The others had given up. They lagged several hundred yards farther back up the trail, shuffling down the narrow path. Guzman could no longer hear their ragged breathing or the scuffling of their feet on the scrabble rock path.

  De Santiago stopped and turned, frustration in his voice.

  "Keep up the best you can. Tell the other children behind you to camp at the pass tonight and hike in tomorrow. Join them if you must."

  He turned and continued his determined downhill dash. Guzman trudged on. It was his duty to stay with his commander, to protect him. That was difficult to do if he was out of sight on a narrow sliver of mountain trail.

  They were crossing the face of the mountain, clinging to a path that was barely a foot wide. Below them, the mountain dropped away, nearly vertical for a thousand or more feet. Above them, it was straight up to a summit that was completely lost in the cloudy mist.

  It was totally dark when the pair crossed a shoulder of the mountain and the path became a little wider. The drop below them was not nearly so plumb. Still, the loose rock and talus made the footing treacherous.

  Guzman slipped and grabbed for a handhold, stopping his slide just as his feet were at the edge. When he regained his breath, he yelled ahead again.

  "El Jefe, what is so important that we stay out here like this? Even if we don't fall to our deaths, we can't make the camp until morning anyway."

  Guzman could hardly make out the dark figure of the most dangerous man in Colombia. De Santiago abruptly stopped on the trail and turned back to answer him. Guzman later swore that he could see the sparks flashing in the leader’s eyes as he spoke. His words were soft but determined. The wind carried them as it did the fine icy vapor.

  "Guzman, my friend, we must get back as soon as we can in order to continue what has already begun. There is much to do and many pieces to put in place. This will be a night you will tell your grandchildren about. This is the night the final victory begins."

  2

  Commander Jonathan Ward slapped up the periscope handles in exasperation. Reaching over his head, he grunted in disgust and snapped around the large red periscope lift ring, lowering the scope.

  "Dammit, XO! That merch just won't move!” he complained to his executive officer. “He's still sitting up there and we can't shoot ‘til he leaves. How much longer until the launch window closes?"

  Ward wiped the sweat away from his forehead with the back of his hand, half dreading the answer he would get to his question. His blue poopie suit had long since wilted. Wide, dark streaks of sweat ran down its back. He paced across the side of the periscope stand, trying to walk off the nervous energy while he waited for his XO to finish checking figures.

  Except for the skipper’s footsteps on the deck, the crowded control room of the nuclear attack sub Spadefish was surprisingly quiet. The only other sound in the stifling air was the hum of the vent fans, straining to remove the body heat of twenty closely packed human beings.

  Lieutenant Commander Joe Glass looked up from the chart table jammed into the forward starboard corner of the control room.

  "Another five minutes, Skipper. Not enough time to shoot," he reluctantly reported.

  A chart of the Southern California coastline was spread out on the table before him. It was crisscrossed with colored lines representing all the ship traffic in the area. Joe Glass was trying his best to find an open spot somewhere in the mess of tangled spaghetti surrounding a dot that represented Spadefish. There simply wasn't one.

  Glass was the perfect counterpoint to Jonathan Ward in several ways, some obvious from appearance, others not. Where Ward was tall and razor slim, Glass was short, stocky, and prone to a paunch. Ward's thick shock of blonde hair was a contrast to Glass’s rapidly receding brush of dark hairline. Ward tended to assay a situation instantly, then moved quickly and decisively. Glass was more likely to ponder a problem studiously before moving toward the solution. The crew had long since dubbed them Mutt and Jeff, but only when they were for certain beyond earshot.

  Lieutenant Steve Friedman turned from the computer console where he sat. He too had a complex picture before him, a mess of dots on the screen that he had been staring at for the last several minutes. Now that Glass had broken the silence, Friedman chimed in with his own report, speaking slowly, precisely, exactly as he had been trained to do, but in a thick Southern accent.

  "Captain, I have tracking solutions on sierra four-five, sierra four-nine and sierra five-four."

  Ward acknowledged with little more than a nod.

  "Skipper," came another voice from across the control room. It was Stan Guhl, the Spadefish’s weapons officer. He turned away from his launch panel to speak once the captain had looked his way. His accent was flat and nasal, “New Yawk” all the way, Queens or Brooklyn. "The torpedo room re
ports the Tomahawk in tube two has another ten minutes before we need to down-power it."

  Ward absorbed all the information he had just garnered.

  "Very well, Weps," he said. He stepped down from the raised periscope stand and looked over Friedman's shoulder. "Whadda you have, Steve?" he asked quietly.

  Despite his youthful face, Steve Friedman was a master at operating the CCS Mark II fire control system. He had an uncanny ability to extract the most information out of the least input, sometimes seeing things in the scrawl of figures and cryptic symbols on the CRT that Ward swore couldn’t be represented there.

  "Well, Skipper," he began in his slow Alabama drawl, "Sierra four-five is the closest. He must be that merch y’all are looking at. Range four thousand. Speed ten. Course about zero-two-five. CPA in fifteen minutes at three thousand yards, bearing three-four-seven. I'm guessing he’s headed into Long Beach."

  CPA stood for "closest point of approach," the closest the contact would get to Spadefish if all the analysis was correct. Sub skippers start to get nervous when vessels come within a couple of thousand yards. There were too many collisions on record, caused when ships get too close then unknowingly turn toward the submarine while the skipper is looking the other way.

  And how many sugars is the merchant ship’s captain having in his cup of coffee? Ward thought. It wouldn’t have surprised him if the kid could tell him. He looked at the stick diagram that showed the computer’s opinion on the more important matter at hand.

  “Yeah, that looks about right. He might be a little broader in aspect. I could see across his main deck. The forward king posts were almost in line. That would bring his range in some and put him just about at CPA now."