The Latin Blues

Bull Womack heard the shuffling of feet on the scratchy carpet outside his door. Every sense he had honed through decades of military service told Bull that there was a man standing there, waiting. It wasn't just the man's heavy, stilted breathing that gave him away, but a certain weightfulness to the air that one only feels when a trained body realizes, consciously or not, that someone else is there.

It was that weightfulness that Bull hated about the presence of others. There was no possible way he could enjoy a cigar in an oppressive environment like that.

Go away, you bastard. Bull thought, his lips moving with the words.

And there it was. A short knock, three quick raps.

Bull was silent. His left was was still in his desk drawer, digging from matches, while his right a cigar that looked so packed with tobacco that it was ready to burst.

Three more raps. "Chief Womack?" The voice was too soft, too diffident to be a man. It was a teenager, maybe 18. Probably not. The Peruvian Armed Forces seemed to be using whatever they could get lately.

"Yes?" Bull replied, after another set of knocks. There was another hesitation of a few seconds, then the door slowly opened and the soldier slipped in. True to Bull's reading, the man was hardly that, with an innocent face on which a light, fuzzy beard was just starting to grow. He shook slightly, and didn't look Bull in the eyes. Opening one of the folders he held, he began reading to Bull.

"Sir, we have a report from Major Ortiz. He says that the operation in Lucanas was a success, and the Shining Path commander has been eliminated." The man delivered the news in English with a heavy accent. Each word was deliberate and heavy, obviously awkward on the boy's lips.

Bull nodded slowly. "Of course. I had no doubt Major Ortiz would be successful. He's a resourceful man."

"Yes, sir, but...there's something else." The man looked down and began reading again,  "The Shining Path left behind most of their military equipment in their flight. Major Ortiz officially requests reinforcements due to the nature of the opportunity and–"

"Yes, of course, we'll send some teams down to pick through their bases sometime later. Tell Major Ortiz his new orders are to–"

"Sir, but–" The man said, and, despite his words barely being audible under Bull's booming voice, Bull stopped speaking. He stared at the man, who suddenly had a look as if he had been slapped.

"Yes, Private? You interrupted me?

"Sir, yes, but, sir, the report says," the man stammered a few times in English, spoke a word in Spanish, then dropped one of his folders, spilling papers all over the office floor.

Bull stood up. He towered over the man, even from behind his desk.

"The report says what, Private?"

"It says, uh, that the MRTA is moving to secure the supplies themselves. They'll have forces there within the hour."

Bull smiled. For the first time in a while, he smiled. Finally, the cowards were showing themselves. The temptation was too much to bear. For communists, their greed was incorrigible. The Shining Path was dangerous, yes, but they were animals. They had to be put down just like any other rabid thing, yes, but there was never any question that eventually they would be. The MRTA was different. It was organized. It had foreign suppliers – the U.S.S.R., Cuba. They were an actual force that had to be confronted intelligently. Bull had been waiting for this fight for a very long time.

He walked over to his coat rack. The Private was standing, frozen facing the desk.

"You been in a fight yet, Private?"

There was no need for him to answer. Of course he hasn't. Not yet. He didn't have the look yet.

"Tell 2nd and 3rd battalions to suit up and be ready to move on the double. We're going commie hunting."

There was no need to ask if they were going to seek General Aguirre's permission – the General knew that it was his job to give permission to whatever the CIA wanted. As the Chief of Station for the CIA in Peru, Womack effectively ran the country's counter-terrorism efforts.

As Womack swung on his overcoat, the Private fled the room to deliver his orders. Soon, a battery of Peruvian soldiers would be moving south at his command, ready to lay their lives on the line to fight communism. He would join one of the jeeps of the advanced scouting party and meet with Major Ortiz, and together they would blunt any offensive the MRTA could throw at them. It was looking like at the end of the day there would be a lot of dead commies, and if Bull had any luck he might even get to shoot a few himself.

It's good to be an American. Bull thought as he slammed the office door behind him and began walking down the hallway, receiving salutes from every soldier he passed.

Old bones, shoddy suspension and dirt roads. They didn't mix, Buster thought as the M38A1 Jeep bounced its way toward the Shining Path Southern FOP. Grey eyes gazed out from a weathered face, beneath a soiled bandanna that may have been red once but was now the colour of the sweltering jungle they lived and fought in. The AKS74U Carbine jostled on his lap from the jittering motions of the Jeep and a lazy hand readjusted the strap across his chest.

The five other men in the Jeep were Peruvian and members of his current employer, The Shining Path. They spoke in Spanish among themselves and the Mercenary could only pick out a few words from the conversation. Nothing that would help him make sense of what they were saying but enough to know that it was just general chatter among soldiers. The road curved to the right and Stewart gripped the open side of the vehicle to steady himself as the driver took the corner at speed. Ten more minutes and the Jeeps horn sounded out loudly as its speed began to decrease. The FOP lay ahead, sand bags covering each side of the road with a machine gun emplacement facing them. Hacked tree stumps littered the area, remnants of clearing fields of view for sentries and the snipers positioned in the canopy.

Not that they'd bothered to clear a perimeter around the FOP itself, cover for as far as the eye could see and any number of positions a careful and quiet assailant could lay down fire on the flimsy tents where Southern Command and their men bunked. Northern wasn't much better but they had the terrain on their side. It was his assessment that the Shining Path wasn't any different to an armed mob. They had a few soldiers who jumped ship from the Peruvian Military but not enough for the naive Maoists that had flocked to their cause.

'A good thing,' he thought, 'or I wouldn't have a job'

The Jeep pulled off to the side of the camp and they disembarked. The rumbling engine died and that was when Buster heard the yelling in furious Spanish that drew the eyes of men on patrol and those loitering near the massive cook pot suspended above an open fire. The only notable difference between the tent of Captain Sabiano Alatorre and those of his NCO's and men was its smaller size and a flap covering the entryway. Alatorre was pissed, that much was clear.

"Escocés!" A sergeant called after poking his head through the door flap, and signaled him over. Buster felt his legs give a dull ache as he began the walk toward the tent, too long on the road with little room to stretch his aging joints. One hand pushed the flap aside while the other held his carbine casually across his chest.

"Problems?" He inquired of the Captain who cast a wad of spit to the dirt beside a table with a map of southern Peru.

"That Pinche idiota Castillo is dead," Commander Castillo had only recently been placed in charge of the Southern Division.

"MRTA?"

"No, fucking EP." He spat again after a throaty snarl.

"No great loss from what I heard." The Merc shrugged, Castillo didn't know how to fight a jungle war. He'd originally been part of the EP 31st Infantry out of Huancayo before he and some three dozen soldiers and officers had saw the light and joined The Path. Clearly this had endeared him to the leadership and he was given Southern Command quickly there after.

"The mortars, guns and supplies he left behind are Escocés!" The Captain was calming down and he slumped into a rickety wooden chair with an exasperated sigh. Getting *anything* through the jungle was a costly endeavor and while he and his men could easily survive off the land, their weapons and ammunition were constantly in need of replacing and repair. The Jungle was not kind to man made things.

"So send a battalion to secure it."

"We are but our scouts report the MRTA is already moving to secure the position and the EP will not be far behind." He poked a finger at the map, indicating the position of the fallen outpost.

Trouble.

"Lost cause." The Scotsman spoke shaking his head. There was no tactical advantage to engaging in a three way slug-fest with better equipped enemies.

"We need those supplies."

"There's a clear line between need and practicality, Captain." The Merc moved to the side of the map and indicated the outpost on its faded paper. "Even if you take it before the MRTA and EP arrive, you'll be surrounded and cut off, so no better than you are now but with massive casualties. If we send a recon force to secure the supplies we'll still need transport. They'll hear a truck from miles away and horses aren't reliable in jungle terrain. Your options....are limited." Sabiano stood, and looked at the map with a furrowed brow. He remained silent for the a minute, perhaps more as he mulled over the facts Buster had presented him.

"You are paid to fight Escocés, do as I ask." There was no malice in the Captains afflicted English and Robert had little doubt these orders had come from higher up the meandering Shining Path chain of command but he felt his jaw set and his face fall to anger.

"But not to commit suicide." He turned on his heel and gave a parting, "If you want to kill your men, you lead them."

It was a six hour drive from Lima to Major Ortiz's outpost. Bull sat in the passenger seat of a truck, talking intermittently with the driver, a young American intern from the CIA. About four hours into the journey, they stopped at Fort Piedra, where Bull exchanged his suit for a set of military fatigues, grabbed a rifle, and transitioned to a jeep for the remainder of the journey. This time the driver was an EP soldier who only spoke Spanish. When they pulled up to Major Ortiz's camp, Bull barely even let the jeep stop – it was still sliding along the mud when he opened the door and stepped out, his massive frame and appropriate boots squelching into the ground. Behind him, the reinforcements he brought from Lima were already starting to unpack. Orders rang out in Spanish, and soldiers only had time for a quick salute at Bull before they continued jogging.

Bull ignored it all and headed straight for the command tent. He'd been here long enough – down here, in Peru, fighting this war – to recognize the commander's tent in a Peruvian army base. When he reached it, he headed straight inside, ignoring the flanking soldiers who had just barely raised their arms.

Major Ortiz was sitting at a small, plastic table, looking over maps, absentmindedly picking at various foods in a ration pack. Large – as tall as Bull, and much heavier – the Major looked like he was straining the small foldout chair close to bursting. The Major himself showed a similar strain, his bald head red and shiny from perspiration and his heavy mustache, soaked with sweat, hung from his face like a noodle. The room was hot – even hotter, somehow, then outside, and the heat showed. Major Ortiz's clothes were soaked.

Still, when he looked up and saw Bull standing in his doorway, Major Ortiz smiled. Standing – an action that accompanied grunting more befitting a man 20 years old – Ortiz walked over to Chief Womack, arms outstretched for a hug. Bull returned the motion, and grasped his old friend closely. His breath smelt of cheap rum.

Bull and Ortiz had been friends since the moment they met, a few months after Bull was transferred to Peru. The relationship was built on a solitary similarity, but that similarity burned so brightly in both men that it consumed them, defined them – a desire to kill communists. It also didn't hurt that Ortiz listened to every order Bull gave him without question – he knew Bull shared his desire. Ortiz was good at it, too – one of the most productive generals in the Peruvian Army. He succeeded because he fought like them – he was sneaky, he was efficient, he was ruthless.

After they pulled away from the hug, Ortiz was the first to speak. He spoke in perfect English, something he had picked up at a young age.

"What can I do for you, my friend? The Shining Path is on the retreat, and the MFTA is slow, like a sleeping beast. Even now they lumber closer, bearing down on us. With your support I think we can parry any thrust, but I will not lie. It will be bloody."

Bull smiled. His friend had an interesting way of speaking his second language.

"I have confidence in your abilities, Major. You haven't let me down yet. Tell me, what are we looking at?"

"Hmm, I have to admit to you..." The Major trailed off, looking around the tent. He suddenly slammed his foot down. "Bah! It is too hot in here. Let us step outside."

Bull was thankful at least for that. The light breeze outside felt like heaven as they stepped out of the tent. Ortiz barked something in Spanish to the soldiers, and they began following the two as they walked through the camp.

"I wish that I had more concrete information on the MFTA movement, but unfortunately, we had a bit of a setback."

Bull looked over at Ortiz. Their boots stuck to the mud each time they stepped down. The entire camp smelled like rotten meat and rainwater.

"A setback, Major?" Bull's voice was steady.

"One of our reconnaissance teams was, we fear, captured. At the least, they are MIA. I had sent them to report on the movements of the MFTA about four hours ago, and I lost contact with them after about two hours. Until you came, I hadn't the men to send someone to look for them."

"Last known location?"

"A few miles east of here," the Major said, shrugging.

"That seems like a rather significant problem, Major" Bull said, turning to the man. "Organize a team to–"

Then Bull noticed it. A tiny red dot on the side of Ortiz's head, just above his ear. The Major looked at Bull, cocked his head, then everything above his temple exploded in a shower of gore and blood.

"Son of a bitch!" Bull grunted, diving for the nearest cover as he saw the sniper dot swivel to one of the soldiers accompanying him, bringing him down with three well-placed shots to the torso. The other soldier, grasping the situation quickly, dived inside the nearest tent and, from what Bull could make of the Spanish, radioed in the attack and requested reinforcements.

A blaring alarm started a moment later. Soldiers suddenly poured from the tents like a bees from a hive, running for assigned positions. Bull reached for the pistol in his holster. All signs pointed to a single sniper, but there was no ruling anything out. He almost hoped there would be an assault on the base.

Come get some, then, you bastards.