Code Name Tequila Ch. 22

The phone on the bedside table rang. Chambers reached over Ria, still slumbering beside him, and picked up the phone. "Hello," he said groggily.

"Chambers, we need to move," said the voice said on the other end of the line. Chambers recognised it as Alvaro Gomez, the Colombian DAS agent. "About two hours ago, just before sunrise, simultaneous attacks were made on strategic points on the canal, including the Colon and Panama City entrances via water, as well as land-based attacks on the Gatun and Pedro Miguel locks."

Chambers took the phone away from his ear and listened. Outside, faintly, he could hear the sound of explosions. The hotel room that he and Ria were sharing in Colon was on the other side of a peninsula from the canal entrance. The windows, triple-glazed to keep the traffic noise out, had allowed them to sleep through the first two hours of the battle not more than a mile away.

Chambers put the phone back to his ear. "How are the Panama forces holding?" Chambers asked.

"Not well," replied Gomez. "We expect the Panama City entrance to fall shortly. Gatun and Colon will take longer, but they will fall eventually as well. The land attack at Pedro Miguel is being repelled, but that is just a small force and we think it may just be a diversion to keep troops from moving to the larger battles. Either way, traffic through the canal has come to a stop."

"Do we know the whereabouts of Tabernas?" Chambers asked.

"That is why I called," Gomez said. "DAS agents picked him up just before the attack started. He took a chartered helicopter to a container ship currently moored in the Miraflores locks. Once the fighting started, all traffic movement through the canals was halted. The ship Tabernas is on is sitting in the middle of the lock."

"Hmm, Tabernas is at the only lock not being attacked. Convenient, that," Chambers said.

"That, or ominous," Gomez replied. "Either way, we need to get on that boat. I have three choppers standing by - two gunships and a transport for us. We are going to get on that boat and figure out what is happening. Meet the helicopter at the end of Eighth Street in 20 minutes," Gomez said before hanging up.

Chambers laid back and sighed. Ria had woken up during the call, and put her hand on his chest. "Time to go?" Ria asked.

Chambers nodded. "Into the heart of darkness, it seems."

* *

Marisa pressed the intercom button beside the cockpit door. No one answered, but the plane continued to climb into the air. Marisa jammed her thumb against the button again, pressing her ear against the cockpit door. Though the door was thick and the engine sound loud, she could still hear a faint buzzing. At least she knew the buzzer worked.

"He isn't answering," Marisa said.

"Maybe he's just busy flying the plane during take off," May said, hopefully. "I have a pilots license, you know. Take off and landings are the worst time. Lots of concentration required."

April frowned. "Or maybe he is deliberately ignoring us because he is planning on how to best kill us."

The plane started to level off, and the noise from the engines went from a high whine to a more consistent low growl.

"There, he's levelled off. Try him again," May said.

Marisa pressed the intercom button. There was still no answer. Marisa took out her mobile phone, but this far south of the city, she didn't get any signal.

"What now?" Marisa asked.

May shrugged her shoulders. April frowned, and looked out the window. Marisa dejectedly took her seat.

"I guess now we just hope that April is wrong, and hope for the best," May said.

April nodded, still looking out the window, but she knew she wasn't wrong. That was definitely the same voice she had heard in Caracas before.

Marisa shook her head. "I just can't believe that General de Vita is working with the Aguila Roja. It just doesn't make sense. Why would he?" May reached out and placed a hand of comfort on Marisa's shoulder.

April suddenly stood up, still peering out of the window. "May, do you know much about this plane?"

May shrugged. "Not too much. The basics."

"Is there a way for the pilot to exit the cockpit other than the cockpit door?" April asked.

May tilter her head to the side, confused. "I think there was an escape hatch on the side of the cockpit for use in emergencies. Why?"

April pointed out the window. "Because I think the pilot just used it," she said. Marisa and May jumped up and looked out the windows. Below them, drifting slowly down towards the ground, they could see a parachute floating.

May walked up to the cockpit door and tried to open it. It was locked.

May looked around the plane. She lunged to the back of the plane and pulled the fire extinguisher out of its brackets. She strode up to the cockpit door and started to bash the door with the fire extinguisher.

It didn't give way.

"Fuck, we need to get into this cockpit," May said.

She bashed the door again. It started to buckle, but the latch still held.

April walked up to May. "If we get into the cockpit, can you fly this plane?" April asked.

May shrugged. "It's a lot larger than anything I am qualified on, but I don't see what other choice we have," May said.

May took another three bashes at the door with the fire extinguisher. The latch bent slowly, but the bend increased with each bash. Bang. Bang. Bang. The door was almost open. One final bash, and the latch broke. The door, bent out of shape, swung slightly open. May grabbed it, and swung it fully open, the bent door dragging on and digging into the floor of the passenger cabin as she pried it open.

The cockpit was empty. Beside the left seat, a small hatch, big enough for a person to crawl through, was open. Wind whipped into the cabin.

May sat down in the pilot's seat, and pulled the hatch shut.

"Wow, why didn't we get sucked out of the open door?" April asked.

May looked over the controls, answering distractedly. "This is a small prop plane. It's not pressurised, which means there isn't any pressure differential between in here and out there," she said.

"So, can you fly this?" Marisa asked.

May looked over the controls again intently before answering. "We have a couple of problems. First, the radio is inoperative. It appears the pilot disabled it before jumping. Second, the pilot was obviously not planning on flying very far. We don't have much fuel left at all. Maybe fifteen minutes worth."

"Is that enough to get us back to the airfield?" Marisa asked.

May shook her head. "No. With that little fuel, our best bet is to find a flat, even patch of ground to land on, immediately. Marisa, sit in the other seat, and scan out to the right. If you see any long, flat, clear patches, let me know."

Marisa sat in the co-pilot's seat. April slumped into a seat in the passenger cabin. "I knew a small plane like this would be the death of me," she said, a quiver in her voice.

"There, there's something," Marisa said, stabbing a finger against the windscreen.

May sat up in her seat, craning to see where Marisa was pointing. May saw a long stretch of grass, a muddy farmer's field stretching off on one side and a thick forest on the other. The impromptu runway was quite narrow. If May was offline at all, she would either get the plane stuck in the mud, which would probably flip them over on their roof, or hit a tree, which would no doubt spin the plane widely into the trees.

May scanned the horizon, but saw no better options.

"Hang on, this is going to be a bumpy landing," May said.

May steered the plane until she was lined up with the grassy strip. She slowed the engine to landing speed and started the plane into a descent towards the narrow lane of grass. Marisa looked over at May to see beads of sweat developing on her brow. May let out a long breathe, staring intently at the ground. She made a few slight adjustments, hoping that the left wheels of the landing gear would still be on the grass while the right wing-tip would clear the dense forest.

May looked down at the altimeter. It showed 1400 feet above sea level. Without a chart of the area she was landing on, though, May couldn't be exactly sure how far they were to the ground. May judged that they were only about 300 feet above the ground. She would have to land by sight.

The engine sputtered. May quickly looked at the fuel gauge and saw the needle just hovering on empty. May tried opening the fuel flow a little to give the engine a little more gas, but to no available. The cockpit went quiet and the propellers slowed to a stop as the engine went dead.

"May," Marisa said, alarmed.

"We can glide in," May said, hands shaking on the yoke. "It'll be a hard landing, though. I can't control the speed we are approaching."

The plane, now nothing more than a giant glider, floated towards the ground. May made a few last adjustments on the pedals and the stick, but with no power the plane barely moved off course. May said a silent prayer as the plane quickly approached the ground.

The plane glided just above the grassy, less than five feet to drop to touch down. May looked out to the right of the plane. The wing tip sliced through some brush and young saplings at the edge of the forest, just a few feet from the larger and sturdier trunks of the big trees. May quickly checked the mirror outside the cockpit. She could see the left wheel. It was just above the grass, skirting the edge of the muddy field. The border of the field wasn't straight, though, and May could see there were points where the field cut into the grass strip, creating a large pothole on their landing strip.

The plane was as well lined up as it could be. May pressed the yoke forward, and the plane lurched downward. The landing gear banged hard against the ground, and the plane momentarily bounced back up into the air before slamming down again. This time the wheels stuck on the ground, and the plane rolled quickly down the narrow grass lane.

Marisa looked out to the right of the plane. The end of the wing was not visible as it sliced through brush to the side. "We are awfully close to the forest," Marisa said, a quiver in her voice.

May took a quick peak into the side mirror. The left landing gear wheel was only half on the grass, the other half floating uselessly in the air above the muddy farmer's field. She was as far left as she could get. May returned her gaze forward, staring ahead while her white knuckled hands tried to keep the plane as straight as possible.

Marisa stopped staring at the wing cut into the jungle and looked ahead. She gasped. Ahead of them was a large ditch where a stream run out of the jungle and into the farmer's field. "May, the stream," Marisa said.

"I see it," May said testily. May adjusted the flaps straight up to provide some air breaking, and stomped on the breaks. The wheels slide along the wet grass, not really slowing down the plane much. The ditch got closer and closer.

"Hang on," May said. Marisa braced herself against the cockpit dash while April whimpered and buckled her seat belt in the main cabin.

The front wheel reached the ditch, spinning uselessly in the air as the ground fell away beneath it. The plane angled downward, the horizon disappearing from the windscreen, replaced by a view of the grass ahead. The front wheel touched the bottom of the ditch. The plane ploughed forward. The front wheel dug into the soft mud, slowing considerably. The rear of the plane, still travelling at speed, pivoted up into the air. The nose angled down until it hit the grass. The nose started to crush as the plane dug into the ground. May, April and Marisa lurched forward, there bodies straining against the safety belts of their seats.

The plane continued forward, ploughing a furrow in the grass with both the nose of the plane and the front landing fear. The plane's rear, up in the air, started to fall towards the left. It crashed down hard into the muddy field, quickly driving through the soft mud and finding hard clay beneath.

The plane, nose crumpled, landing gear buckled and broken, came to a rest, half on the grass and half in the field.

* *

The three helicopters approached the ship moored in the canal. Gomez looked at Ria and Chambers and spoke into his headset. "The Canal Authority has attempted to communicate with the ship, but it is no longer answering. We have authority from the Panamanians to land and take the ship. There is a contingent of 16 marines spread across the three helicopters," Gomez said as he motioned to the two marines sitting opposite them in the helicopter. Ria figured that meant there were 7 marines each in the other two copters.

Gomez opened his mouth, about to continue, when the pilot's voice came crackling over the headsets. "Missiles!"

Ria and Chambers looked out the side door of the helicopter. Two pillars of smoke were rising from the container ship, the trails of a couple of missiles fired from the deck towards the approaching helicopters. "Hold on," screamed the pilot as the helicopter banked sharply to the left.

The missiles picked up on the two larger gunships escorting Ria and Chambers' helicopter. From the mounted guns on the sides of the two helicopters, gunfire popped down towards the deck. Ria could see people on the deck of the ship scatter as sparks flew up off the metal of the ship as each bullet hit.

One of the gunship helicopters banked to the right, away from the approaching missile. The missile's trajectory curved as it followed the helicopter. The pilot of the helicopter banked it harder, speeding up and heading into a dive. The missile just passed above the helicopter, ascending up into the air in a large arc, eventually descending down into the rain forest west of the lock.

The second gunship banked hard left and dove down. The second missile curved to follow the helicopter. The second missile seemed to turn more abruptly, seemingly keyed into the helicopter. The pilot tried banking to the right and pulling up out of the missile's path, but the evasive movement was not enough. The missile hit the helicopter square on the bottom of the craft. The helicopter exploded in a flaming fire ball, before falling in a pillar of black smoke into the Miraflores Lake just to the north of the lock.

The marines in the helicopter carrying Chambers, Ria and Gomez opened the side doors of the helicopter, and took up positions with their weapons, spraying the ship with gunfire. The pilot of the helicopter brought the craft down lower towards the water of the lake. "I don't think we can land on the boat," the pilot said over the headset.

"Can you put us down, at least for a second, on the land beside the boat?" Gomez asked.

"I'll try," the pilot said.

Two missiles shot up from the deck of the ship again. This time, both missiles had the same target, the remaining gunship. The gunners on the helicopter tried to hit the missiles with enough gunfire to make them explode before finding their target, and the pilot tried to weave and bob away from the two rockets locked onto him, but the two missiles were more than he could evade. One missile whooshed by the helicopter, firing off towards the rain forest to the north, but the second missile found its target. The helicopter burst into flame, and arced downward, flaming and smoking like a comet, until it crashed into the forest to the east of the lock.

The pilot of the final helicopter brought it down close to the land beside the lock. The ship in the lock towered above them, like a giant metal wall.

"You'll have to jump. I need to get out of here quick," he screamed through the headset. Chambers, Gomez and Ria undid their seat belts, each grabbed an automatic rifle and moved towards the door, ready to go.

The pilot brought the helicopter down until it hovered about 10 feet from the ground. "Go," the pilot screamed through the headset. One of the marines, motioned for the three two jump, and Ria, Chambers and Gomez jumped down onto the ground, rolling into balls.

Ria rolled out of a ball and looked to her side. The ground beside her was exploding as gunfire from the ship raked the ground. One of the marines still on the helicopter aimed up to the deck of the ship and let off a few bursts. From the deck of the ship a gunman slumped forward, somersaulting over the railing and falling fifty feet down to the concrete of the lock's bank.

Ria, Chambers and Gomez stood up and ran towards the ship. The helicopter took off into the air, the two marines hammering the sit of the ship with gunfire. As the three reached the side of the lock, Gomez and Chambers looked up at the massive ship, wondering how to scale the sheer wall of steel and get onboard. Ria looked north to see the helicopter being pursued by two trails of smoke. She turned away before the missiles found their target, and the last helicopter fell into the forest below in a fireball.

* *

"April, are you alright?" Marisa said.

"Mostly, I think," April replied from the airplane cabin.

Marisa looked over at May, sitting silently in the pilot's seat. "May, are you okay?"

May nodded. "That was... close," May said, still sounding stunned.

Marisa patted May on the shoulder. "You did good work, May. You saved us."

Marisa and May exited the cockpit through the buckled cockpit door. May surveyed the interior of the plane. The fuselage was bent and buckled. "Well, this plane isn't going to fly again," she said.

Marisa pulled a map out of her bag and consulted it. "I'm not exactly sure where we are, but given the plane's speed and direction, we are probably close to this oil field," she said, pointing to a spot on the map. "If we head there, we can probably get transportation."

The three girls forced the door of the small plane open, and hopped out. They looked around them, mostly seeing jungle beyond the field they had landed beside. "There," Marisa called out, pointing off to the south. "There, do you see it, just above the tree tops. I can just see the tip of a oil rig. That'll be the oil field on the map. We should head for that," Marisa said.

The three girls set off, walking around the field and eventually towards the south. They looked for a path or clearing in the dense brush where they could move into the jungle, but the forest wall looked almost impregnable. After almost circling the entire field, April spotted a small path into the jungle.

The three girls made their way towards the path. They were about twenty feet from the entrance to the path when suddenly the air around them exploded into sound. It was the sound of gunfire.

April, May and Marisa scattered towards the edge of the jungle, finding cover in the brush that grew at the edge of the jungle. They turned towards the path just in time to see a group of men back out from the jungle. They were facing into the jungle and firing their automatic rifles. One of them fell to the ground, shot dead, indicating that they were receiving fire back.

"Looks like we've stumbled into a battle," Marisa whispered to the two other girls.

The men who had backed out of the jungle broke ranks, and scattered, running off in different directions. Chasing them from out of the jungle came a much larger group of men. They fired indiscriminately at the fleeing soldiers, falling them one by one with shots to the back.

"I think we should get out of here," May said quietly. Marisa and April nodded.

Marisa pointed to a very small opening into the jungle. "I think we need to stay off the paths. We'll have to bushwhack," she said.

The three girls nodded, and crawled single-file into the jungle as the sound of gunfire continued behind them.

* *

Hands red and raw from shimmying up the 60 feet of thick, coarse rope that moored the container ship to the side of the lock, Ria crouched on the deck, rifle at the ready and scanning the deck of the ship as Chambers helped Alvaro Gomez over the side railing.