Program V3, Prelude 2

[Namira]

"We're taking a big risk."

Graciela glowered at her comrade, a brawny, broad-shouldered man in a shirt and overalls.

"You've been saying that for the last three hours, Fernando. I get the point."

Fernando shrugged and then folded his arms, resuming his position leaning on the bonnet of the battered sedan they'd driven up to the isolated hilltop farmstead. It was the third vehicle they'd swapped to on the way to their destination, and they had two more switches ahead of them on the way back, provided everything went well.

Graciela was feeling an uncomfortable combination of excitement and anxiety, the latter mostly due to the former. Over the years, she'd had many opportunities to be excited, have her spirits lifted. Every time, her hopes had ended up brutally crushed. She had turned twenty-seven this year. She'd been fighting the Americans since she was twelve.

They'd suffered innumerable losses in those fifteen years, so many that Graciela couldn't remember all the names and faces. Instead they came and went in little snapshots, scraps of memories that were all that was left. The old man with the crooked smile who'd let guerrillas stay in his basement, the passerby caught in the crossfire in the street who'd dove onto a grenade for them, the little boy who pointed the opposite direction when the Americans came rushing by in pursuit.

And yet, like a fool, she found herself daring to hope again. And, like a fool, here she was out in the middle of nowhere, waiting to meet with the enemy.

The handheld radio hooked on her belt crackled. Graciela picked it up.

"Manuel?"

"An APC just crossed the ridge," their lookout's voice was relaxed. "Having second thoughts yet?"

An APC, and over the only blindspot across the entire area, no less. Crap. "How fast? Are they alone?"

"Can't see any others, but the angle sucks. Coming on quick though. They're flooring it."

Graciela could already hear the engine roaring. Fernando turned to her, mouth set in a thin line.

"Get it," she told him, and he nodded, striding to the rear of the sedan and popping the trunk. A moment later, he produced a thick tube with a trigger, then in his other hand, the projectile. Only one rocket for this launcher; if they wound up having to use it, they would have no room for error.

Graciela opened the car's side door and then peeled back the seat cushion. Nestled underneath was an assault rifle, which she grabbed and immediately loaded. The concealment was necessary. The Americans barely needed an excuse to gun down anyone they thought was an enemy; openly carrying any kind of weaponry was a death sentence.

"Getting close, Grace. I have a shot."

"No, Manuel. Not until we're certain," her heart was pounding. If they'd made the wrong choice in trusting their contact, then all three of them were about to die. Perhaps they could handle one APC's worth of soldiers if they were extremely lucky, but there wouldn't just be one. The Americans wouldn't send only one.

So, why not wait it out? They were dead anyway.

"Your call."

Fernando raised an eyebrow and then shouldered his RPG. "Let's not go alone."

Graciela nodded. The engine was continuing to rumble, growing louder and louder as it approached. Then, with the sound of tires grinding to a halt in dirt, it stopped.

A long pause.

"APC's pulled up. No movement."

The next seconds stretched into an eternity.

"Passenger door just opened. I see someone. Armed. Fatigues."

Graciela clutched the radio, white-knuckled. "Is it our guy?"

"No chevrons."

She swallowed, checked her rifle again. Fernando adjusted the RPG and slowly began to roll his shoulder.

"Driver's getting out. I don't see any weapons."

"And?"

"Still no. Still have a shot."

Graciela's heart was in her mouth. She held up the radio, and could see it trembling in her hand. One more crushed hope. The last one.

"Hold up. Another passenger. ...They have chevrons! Grace, it's the contact!"

Relief descended on Graciela's shoulders with such weight that she felt her legs buckle. She put a hand out to the car, steadying herself. Fernando exhaled, long and hard.

"Not today."

"Not today," Graciela agreed.

"The driver and the contact are on their way up. I see anything, I'm shooting."

"Understood, Manuel. Thanks."

The line went dead, and Graciela turned back towards the direction the APC would have arrived from. The hill was steep and the sedan was parked a long way back from that edge of the incline; they wouldn't get sight of the contact until they'd practically crested the hill.

It was a long wait. Graciela found herself fidgeting with nervous energy. Both excitement and anxiety had ramped up after that initial adrenaline rush. Even if this was truly their contact, both sides of this meeting were risking a great deal to be here. The longer it went, the greater the chance of discovery. It had taken almost nine months of planning, covert communications, dead drops, symbols disguised as graffiti, ciphers and more to get this far.

Movement. Two figures appeared at the edge of the hill and then hesitated, obviously seeing Graciela, Fernando, and the car. Graciela raised a hand of acknowledgement, and then, after a brief moment where one of the newcomers seemed to say something to the other, they approached.

As they got closer, Graciela saw that both soldiers carried sidearms holstered at their waists. She shifted her grip on her rifle, clenching it a little tighter.

One of them wore chevrons on their shoulder, denoting them as a sergeant, although their face was covered by a muffler and a thick pair of mirrored goggles. The other's features were obscured by a balaclava.

"I feel under dressed," Fernando muttered.

Graciela laughed, but even to her own ear it sounded strained and nervous. She cut herself off immediately.

Before long, the pair stood in front of them. The sergeant stepped forward, nodding to Fernando.

"You are Bear?" the voice was a woman's, and the American accent blared strong through the broken Spanish.

Fernando smiled slightly, shook his head, and then inclined his head to Graciela.

"I'm Bear," she stuck out her hand, although she did not take the other from her gun. "You must be Shaman."

"Yes," the officer returned the handshake, and then moved back. She pulled down the muffler and pushed up the goggles, revealing weathered Caucasian features, hard angles and deep creases. "My name is Janice Marshall," she held out an arm to her companion. "This Carlos."

Carlos pulled off his balaclava. He was gaunt-faced, his light brown skin sallow. "Good to meet you," he said. His Spanish was much better than his sergeant's, likely native. At a guess, he was Mexican.

Graciela was a little surprised. After the amount of cloak and dagger to get to this point, she wasn't expecting them to be so forthright about who they were. Though, if they couldn't trust one another now, then it was all pointless, wasn't it?

"What's he doing here?" Fernando squinted at Marshall.

"To translate. The sergeant's Spanish..." Carlos made a face. "Ehh, not so good."

Marshall reached into her jacket. Graciela tensed, and saw Fernando doing the same. She produced a set of papers.

"We brought plans, maps," she looked at Carlos, said something in English.

"Patrol routes and schedules. Everything we'll need to bypass all of their defences."

Graciela put out her hand and Marshall gave her the whole file. Carlos shot his superior an anxious look, but did not speak.

Fernando noticed the nervousness and grinned without warmth. "If we wanted one another dead, we'd all already be dead."

Carlos nodded. Marshall stood impassively, either not understanding or not being inclined to speak. Graciela took the opportunity to begin flicking through the papers. True to the American's word, there was more intel here at a glance than the guerrillas had collected independently in the past six months. Provided that the information could be corroborated, in her hands she now held the greatest chance Argentina had to win this war.

She couldn't let herself get too excited. Not here. Not now. There was too much at stake to be able to take Marshall at face value. Shaman had been feeding the guerrillas intelligence throughout the communications they'd exchanged with her; that trust had earned her this face-to-face meeting. There still remained the possibility that this was all part of an elaborate trap—give them enough to get them interested, have them commit everything to a decisive strike, and then slam shut the jaws around them.

Marshall spoke in English for a moment, and then Carlos translated. "There's something else. Baseman and Eagle wanted to prove their loyalty to the cause."

That got Graciela's attention. Baseman and Eagle were the men behind the man, the individuals that Shaman had referenced as being involved in this plot to a much greater degree than herself. Details had been fairly scarce other than to confirm that both of them were officers and both were on active duty. They were the reason that Graciela's people had even deemed this meeting to be worth the risk. Exposing three of their best soldiers to potential death and capture just for the sake of one disillusioned sergeant? Not a chance in hell.

"What do you have?"

"Here," Marshall's hand was in her jacket again, and this time reappeared with several Polaroid photographs.

Graciela took those too, and Fernando shifted over to glance at them.

The first appeared to be a PR shot; a uniformed man wearing a military hat standing at a podium. Graciela's nose wrinkled with disgust. Everyone in Argentina would have recognised that face; General Campmann, the man in charge of the USA's war efforts in the country, whose merciless treatment of anyone helping the guerrillas had at times pushed them to the very brink. The armed patrols, the raids, the shelling of towns thought to be harbouring their fighters, those were all Campmann.

Graciela shuffled it to the back of the pile. The next picture was a much more surreptitious shot, Campmann dressed down in fatigues and seated at a bar, apparently enjoying a dinner date with a young woman.

Next picture. Graciela jerked back.

Fernando murmured, "Well well well."

Campmann again. This time, however, the general was tied to a chair and stripped to the waist, face bloodied and bruised. Overcoming her initial alarm, Graciela studied the picture intently. Was it genuinely him, or just a lookalike? Wouldn't they have heard something about this by now? Campmann was the face of the US army just as much as its commander; barely a day went by when he wasn't making a public announcement or plastered all over the cover of the insipid American-controlled newspaper.

Next picture, and speak of the devil, a newspaper. Campmann, still half naked and looking even worse for the wear than before was holding it up. Dated yesterday.

Four more. Graciela went through them one after another. Campmann's dog tags. Campmann standing between two hooded figures, and then—

Graciela flinched.

Of all the things she'd expected when on the way to this meeting, she hadn't considered the possibility she'd be given a depiction of an execution.

"Jesus," Fernando muttered, sounding half horrified and half impressed.

"We have a tape, too, if you'd like to watch." To his credit, Carlos was grim faced as he spoke.

The answer was no, but Graciela nodded anyway. "We'll take the tape. Was that everything?"

Carlos conferred with Marshall for a moment, and she nodded. "We be in touch."

Both soldiers stepped back, and Graciela held up a hand. "A question, before you go."

They both paused.

"Why do all of this? Why betray your country?"

Carlos laughed. "It isn't my country." He looked to Marshall and translated. She listened, then smiled sadly, spoke again.

The derisive expression on Carlos's face softened. "She believes America should be better than it is."

Marshall tucked her hands behind her back. "Goodbye, Bear."

Fernando moved forward and put a hand on the woman's shoulder. "Thank you."

Another sad smile, a quick aside in English.

"You shouldn't have to thank us."

The pair walked away with no further words.

Graciela breathed out, unhooked her radio again.

"Stand down, Manuel. No shooting today."

"I hear you. Do I get to drive?"

Graciela laughed, all relief, no mirth, and just a little hope. "Sure, Manuel. You get to drive."