The Tale of How I Started a Civil War in South America (4)
It was late at night at the headquarters of the 1st Infantry Division, but the lights in the commander's office had not gone out.
Crystal rang against crystal, a bright, clear chime filling the room. Major General Garcia Coutinho, commander of the 1st Infantry Division, and Colonel Dani Coutinho, commander of the Artillery Regiment, were knocking back top-shelf whiskey and drinking in the taste of victory.
"Ahh. American whiskey really is the best."
Colonel Dani smacked his lips and set down his glass.
"You sure this is gonna work? What if those Chevron bastards go back on their word..."
"Don't worry. We already stamped the contract. Besides, you think they're going to walk away after dumping that much cash and hardware on us as a down payment?"
Garcia smiled easily and tapped the briefcase sitting on the table. Inside was a secret contract guaranteed by the American law firm Douglas & Kaufman. The terms were simple: in exchange for handing over the oil-field development rights to Chevron, they would receive massive funding and a generous supply of weapons.
Of course, "massive funding" amounted to less than a tenth of what the Northern Oil Fields were actually worth — but for two men whose only philosophy was eating well and living well themselves, that was no problem at all.
"Hell, if they try anything, we just stop them from drilling."
The two brothers knocked back their drinks.
"So what do we do after we declare independence?"
"What do you mean?"
"Shouldn't we push on to Libertad? I mean, we've come this far — shouldn't one of us be president?"
"What kind of insane talk is that?"
Garcia shook his head vigorously.
"Think about it. Even if we take Libertad, we won't make a single extra dime. We'll just have more work piled on us. We live like kings right here."
"Yeah, you're right. No point making headaches for ourselves."
"Anyway... are the preparations coming along? You've locked everything down, right?"
"I already moved all the officers' families into the base gymnasium this afternoon."
"Good. You keep hostages in hand so nobody gets any funny ideas. Any unrest among the troops?"
"A few of them are whispering, but so what? They follow orders or they die. Oh, and I figured we were a little short on war funds, so I collected a special defense tax from the local coffee plantation owners."
"How much?"
"About seventy percent of this year's harvest? We'll dump it on the Chevron guys and get dollars back."
"Isn't that too much? The people are going to get restless."
Dani smirked at his brother's concern.
"Since when did you care about public opinion? If you're that worried, just kill them. Then the plantations fall into our hands anyway."
"Hahaha! You're right. That's my little brother."
The two brothers looked at each other and cackled. The welfare of San Marcos's people — or even their own subordinates — never entered their eyes. All they could see were the stacks of dollars waiting to be theirs.
"What's the central government's reaction? They should've caught wind of this by now."
"Even if they know, what can they do? At best they'll shout 'traitor' and that's it."
Garcia was convinced the defensive line he had built was impregnable. Once the preparations were finished and they declared independence, he figured, they would be sitting on a mountain of money.
That was when it happened.
"C-Commander! We've got a huge problem!"
His aide burst through the door without ceremony.
"You come in without knocking?"
"I-I'm sorry! But you need to turn on the TV right now!"
"The TV?"
Garcia frowned, picked up the remote, and switched on the office television. The screen showed a live broadcast from the Ministry of National Defense briefing room, a breaking-news banner crawling across the bottom — and Eugene standing at the podium.
Unlike usual, Eugene was wearing a military uniform, and his icy gaze seemed to pierce straight through the camera lens.
"What the hell? Why's that bastard wearing a uniform?"
Dani sneered — but the content of the announcement wiped the smirks off both their faces.
"......"
"Major General Garcia Coutinho, Commander of the 1st Infantry Division, and Colonel Dani Coutinho, Commander of the Artillery Regiment. These two men have colluded with a foreign power in an act of national betrayal, seeking to sell off our sacred soil."
"...!"
The glass slipped from Garcia's hand.
Eugene paused to draw a breath, then declared in a voice of iron.
Effective immediately, the 1st Infantry Division and the 1st Artillery Regiment are hereby dissolved.
All command authority over the aforementioned units is revoked. From this moment forward, any soldier who obeys the orders of Garcia or Dani shall not be regarded as a soldier of San Marcos, but as a terrorist, and shall be punished as such.
However, those who immediately lay down their arms and surrender shall not be held accountable. Bear this in mind: your rifles exist to defend the homeland — not to feed the greed of traitors.
"...What? Dissolved?"
The two brothers' jaws dropped. They had never imagined he would come down this hard.
On the screen, Eugene stared straight ahead with eyes so cold they were terrifying — as if he were looking right through the television at Garcia himself.
The broadcast cut off. A suffocating silence filled the commander's office.
"This... this...!"
Garcia's face flushed a deep, furious red. His trembling fist slammed down on the desk.
BANG!
"Has this son of a bitch lost his mind?! Dissolving my division?! Who the hell does he think he is?!"
This was an insult worse than a declaration of war. Treating them not as soldiers, but as terrorists? This was no offer to negotiate — it was a declaration of intent to wipe them out.
"Brother! What do we do? The soldiers are going to panic..."
Dani asked, his face gone white. Strip a soldier of his status, and the salary, the pension, the honor — all of it vanished. And from this moment on, it was obvious that no food, no pay, nothing at all would be coming their way.
"Get out there, assemble the officers, and talk them down. Tell them anyone who tries to run gets summary execution."
"What about food? You can't fight on an empty stomach."
"Contact Chevron and tell them to send supplies."
"Ah..."
"So get going. Show them a confident face."
"Got it."
After Dani left, Garcia stared at Eugene's receding figure on the darkened screen.
"You bastards can't get through anyway. An armored division? Don't make me laugh. You'll all die trying to cross those mountains. I'll open the gates of hell for you."
What he did not know — not yet — was that the one who had opened those gates was not Eugene. It was himself.
The red light on the broadcast camera winked out.
"Hahh..."
"You did well, Your Excellency."
I let out the breath I had been holding and stepped down from the podium. Isabella, who had been waiting, came forward and handed me a glass of water.
"Perfect? My legs were shaking so hard I thought I was going to die."
"Even so, Your Excellency's declaration has given us the justification we needed."
"Justification, huh..."
I managed a bitter smile and started walking toward the situation room. The truth was, this decision was as much a gamble for me as anyone. Sure, I had gotten my hands on drones — but the enemy was a regular army tens of thousands strong, armed with heavy weapons. If this civil war dragged on, San Marcos could end up like any number of African nations: a country that never recovered.
And yet I had committed to this war for one reason only.
If I don't cut this out now, San Marcos dies.
Garcia's collusion with Chevron was, in the long run, an act of ripping the spine out of the nation. The Northern Oil Fields alone would be a staggering loss — and then we would have an enemy state sitting right next door?
We couldn't afford the defense budget.
According to the calculations of the Senior Presidential Secretary for Defense and the Senior Presidential Secretary for Finance, it would require over three hundred million dollars a year. For San Marcos, whose annual budget did not even reach two billion dollars, that was a death blow.
We have to win. No other option.
I steeled myself and asked,
"All the Koreans have been evacuated, right?"
"They were put on a plane to Florida this morning. Ah — your friend asked me to pass along a message."
Isabella held out a scrap of paper. I unfolded it and found Korean handwriting I had not seen in a long time.
Hey — if Isabella doesn't have a boyfriend, think you could introduce me? I'm seriously begging you here.
I crumpled the note and tossed it in the trash.
"What's the status of the armored division's preparations?"
"All forces except one battalion remaining to defend Libertad have completed preparations to advance."
"And the drones? Training time was extremely short. Can they actually be used in combat?"
"Hyunhwa Systems' software is exceptionally robust, and the drones have onboard AI, so they said there will not be any issues."
"Worth every penny, then."
"Korean technology really is remarkable."
I nodded, looking at Isabella, who sounded almost envious. This was exactly why I had not gone with cheap Chinese attack drones and had airlifted in Hyunhwa Systems' instead.
"We need to win this without taking casualties..."
"SIA operatives are risking their lives to gather intelligence. General Pedro will use that to craft a flawless operation, so you need not worry."
"Just to be safe, please pass this along to Commander Pedro one more time. Tell him I want the casualties in this war kept to an absolute minimum."
"Yes, Your Excellency."
I stood and looked out the window, toward the Central Mountain Range.
"Garcia is probably going berserk right about now."
"He will most likely mass his entire force and attempt to seal off the Central Mountain Range."
The night sky over Libertad was utterly, almost mockingly, at peace.
The Central Mountain Range was a colossal barrier splitting San Marcos into east and west. And of all its passes, the sole corridor — El Paso Canyon — was a fortress crafted by nature itself. The narrow path winding between sheer cliffs was barely wide enough for a single tank, and even that could be blocked at any moment by rockfall from above.
"Stupid bastards. Do they even know where they're crawling into?"
Major General Garcia, having led his division here, looked out across the canyon and let out a sneer. He had stationed two regiments at the canyon mouth, built mortar positions along the cliff tops, and seeded the road with anti-tank mines supplied by Chevron. And that was not all. He had also deployed over a hundred Javelin anti-tank missiles provided by Chevron — more than enough firepower to turn a bunch of 1980s-vintage tanks into scrap metal in seconds. No matter how many tanks the armored division threw forward, the moment they entered this narrow chokepoint, annihilation was only a matter of time.
"The central army's movements are a little weird, don't you think?"
Dani lowered his binoculars and tilted his head.
"Weird how?"
"It's been a week since they declared war and we haven't seen hide nor hair of them. Not a single artillery shell."
Dani was right. The armored division under Pedro had dug in on a plain five kilometers from the canyon entrance and had not budged an inch. Garcia snorted.
"They know. They know that if they come through here, they're all dead."
"True. Pedro always was a timid bastard."
Time, in any case, was on his side. If the standoff simply continued, their independence was as good as guaranteed. The support Chevron had promised would be arriving soon, and then the canyon would become an even more impregnable fortress.
But there was one thing Garcia had failed to account for. That in war, there is something every bit as important as bullets.