The Devil's Footprint (54 page)

Unfortunately, he did not see the small passenger helicopter parked
inside one of the hangars for no more serious reason than it was having its
windscreen cleaned.
 
It was used by Reiko
Oshima, and it was at Madoa airfield because Oshima was spending that
particular night with General Luis Barragan.

Unaware of each other's presence, Calvin prepared to attack.

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*
         
*
         
*
         
*

The Devil's Footprint,

Tecuno
,
Mexico

Chifune entered the second floor of the Yaibo barracks, the layout
imprinted on her mind.

Toilets, four stalls.
 
Thirty-six-bed barracks area with passage down the center.
 
Two rooms at either side of
the corridor.
 
Kathleen
on the right.
 
Oshima sometimes —
she moved around — on the left.

Chifune was designated right and Chuck Freeman was assigned left, with
Grady acting as backup.
 
Nothing was
said.
 
This was a prearranged routine
practiced so many times it was an instinctive reflex.

The floor was dark, but through her PNV goggles she could see.
 
There were no colors except shades of green
fading to black and the red dot of her laser gun sight, which was invisible
except to those wearing the goggles and the appropriate filter.

A figure rose from a bed and stumbled sleepily toward the toilets.
 
Outside the stalls, as he fumbled for a light
switch, Chifune shot him twice in the back of the head and caught the body and
lowered it to the ground.
 
Black liquid
ran out of his skull.
 
She checked the
other stalls.
 
All were empty.

Thirty of the beds were still occupied.

Chifune fired, and a split second later Chuck Freeman opened up.
 
The weapons made almost no noise, and the
ejected brass fell downward into cloth bags so there was not even the sound of
empty cases rattling on the floor.

Bodies whipped as rounds tore into them, and blood blackened the
bedclothes and sheets and leaked onto the floor and spread in a great pool.

The attackers advanced, firing steadily in aimed three-round bursts, and
Grady followed up with head shots.
 

One terrorist rose up and screamed and reached for his weapon, but died
as Chifune fired a longer burst and five 10mm armor-piercing slugs cut through
his torso.

At the end of the room, a Yaibo member got his weapon up and cocked it,
then slammed back and slid along the corridor as Grady spotted him and took him
out with a head shot and a burst to the throat.

A pair of lovers sharing the same bed half rose in alarm as the man in
the next bed shuddered and fell back, and then Freeman's rounds found them and
they collapsed in each other's arms.

A Yaibo woman seized a sword and ran down the central aisle toward her
executioners until three streams of Calico rounds converged and cut her nearly
in half.

She fell forward and her weapon cut into the toe of Freeman's boot before
falling from her lifeless hands.

One young Yaibo member — he was older but he looked no more than sixteen
— held up his hands in a vain effort to surrender.
 
The movement attracted Grady's attention and
a burst took him in the face.

A terrorist rolled off his bed and, crawling frantically, emerged between
Chifune and Freeman.
 
Neither could fire
without hitting the other.
 
Grady was
blocked by Freeman.

The terrorist scrabbled to cock his automatic rifle.
 
As he did so, Freeman drew his fighting knife
with his left hand and stabbed the man in the throat.

In less than thirty seconds, thirty-one members of Yaibo lay dead or
dying and the air was thick with the smells of slaughter.
 
All the bodies were checked quickly, and
where there was any sign of life at all, it was terminated.

The assault team moved on.
 
There
was no emotion.
 
This was what they had
trained to do.
 
Reaction would come
later.

The door of Oshima's room was flung open.
 
It was empty.

*
         
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The Blockhouse
Above
The Devil's Footprint,

Tecuno
,
Mexico

Shanley watched through filtered PNV goggles as Al Lonsdale emerged on
the inside of the electric fence.

Despite their equipment and hindered by the requirement for absolute
silence, tunneling under it had proved to be harder and to take longer than
expected.
 
What had appeared like sandy
ground had degenerated into rock, and they had been forced to hunt for another
location.

Seconds later, Dana Felton emerged and Shanley passed through the Clucas
pole in sections.
 
The Clucas had been
designed for
Britain
's
SBS — Special Boat Service — marine commando unit as a way of covertly climbing
onto ships from an assault boat below.
 
It consisted of a central shaft of light, strong alloy with short steps
protruding on either side.
 
It could be
up to fifty-four feet long and was much faster to climb than a rope ladder.

Shanley could see headlights.
 
He
sank back to the ground, and Al and Dana did the same.
 
A minute later the guard jeep with its crew
of four and mounting a heavy machine gun passed by, headlights blazing and
occupants chatting away.

They are bored out of their minds and the lights and the fence give an
illusion of security, thought Shanley.
 
The form and the substance — the split between the two was a curious
paradox in the military world.
 
People
still only went through the motions, even when their very lives were at
stake.
 
It was the ‘It can't happen to
me’ syndrome, and it was the friend of special forces the world over.

Al Lonsdale and Dana rose from the ground and, making every use of the
terrain and keeping to the shadows, moved towards the reinforced concrete
observation post that commanded the two valleys below.
 
Even with his night-vision equipment and
knowing they were there, Shanley found it very hard to follow them.
 
Mostly there was more the faintest impression
of movement than a hard image.

When they came to the base of the post, they vanished.

They will now be moving around to the base on the other side, thought Shanley.
 
Seconds later, three clicks and then one
sounded in his earpiece.

Keeping well under cover, he picked up a lamp and pointed it at the
observation post and shouted in Japanese.
 
It was not a language he spoke, but he had parrot-learned a few phrases.
 
Seconds later, a searchlight swung in his
direction and he ducked right down as the beam moved toward him.

"What's up?
 
What did you
see?" said the startled second guard on the blockhouse roof.
 
He spoke in Spanish.
 
Numb with boredom and the chill of the night,
he had two blankets wrapped around him and had been almost asleep when his
companion had cried out.

"I saw a headlight," said the first guard, "and then
someone shouted in Japanese.
 
It sounds
like the yo-yos are playing games out there."
 
Relations between the Japanese Yaibo
terrorists and the mainly Mexican mercenary force were not cordial.

"Well, fuck ‘em," said his companion.
 
"They should know better.
 
Give them a burst and teach them to
behave.
 
It'll
liven
things up."

The first guard swung the 12.7mm heavy machine gun around.
 
It was sorely tempting, but Yaibo were
supposed to be their allies, and shooting up a group who had got lost on some
exercise would not look like such fun in the light of day.
 
He decided to play it safe and call the guardhouse.

He was reaching for the telephone as the burst from Al Lonsdale's
silenced Calico struck him in the back.
 
The 10mm armor-piercing rounds plowed effortlessly through his
Russian-made flak jacket.

His companion fell at the same time Dana fired.
 
Seconds later, the two members of Shadow Two
had descended into the floor below where eight other members of the duty
section lay sleeping.

It did not take long.
 
They checked
the bodies, switched the current off the electric fence, and ascended to the
roof again.

Shanley watched with growing concern as the lights of the duty jeep came
closer.
 
The jeep, in the normal scheme
of things, was not due back for another fifteen minutes, so he could only
assume that the blockhouse had called them up to investigate the mysterious
light.
 
Bloody hell, it was an obvious
move with hindsight, but actually one they had not anticipated.
 
There was always something staring you in the
face that you missed.
 
As Brick had once
remarked, life was a monument to mankind's fuckups.

"The blockhouse is secure," said Al Lonsdale's voice in his
earpiece.
 
This was technically correct
and though on the open net primarily for Fitzduane's benefit, Shanley meanwhile
had a jeepload of Mexican mercenaries bearing down on him.

What to do?
 
It had to be done
virtually silently.
 
A shout would not
attract attention in either of the camps below, but unsilenced gunshots were
another matter.

He would have to take out the four before they could respond.
 
This was what he had trained for.
 
It could be done.

"Take them out — kill them."

Kill four perfect strangers.
 
Take
the lives of four human beings as peremptorily as one might swat a fly.

He broke out in a sweat.

I cannot kill.
 
I will not kill.
 
Let the others take life
.

He had known this moment would come, and yet he had no idea how he would
respond.
 
It was not an issue you could
resolve in a vacuum.
 
This was not a
theoretical debate.
 
This was not an
exercise.
 
Albeit for reasons he
considered valid, this was the slaughter of sentient human beings.
 
It was immoral.
 
It was wrong.
 
It was something he could not do — would not do.

The guard jeep slowed to a halt.

It was the other side of the double fence and past him by about ten
meters.
 
At the most they were fifteen
meters away from his position and looking away from him.

Two dismounted from the jeep and went to look more closely.
 
The driver and the machine gunner remained in
position.

Shanley faced with the immediate reality, no longer rationalized.

Reflex took over and basic survival instinct took over — and something
more.
 
A determination
not to let his people down.
 
They
were not perfect.
 
Some he did not even
like.

Not important.
 
They were a
team.
 
There was a shared purpose, shared
loyalties, shared experiences.
 
They were
his
people.
 
Better yet, even those he did not warm to
were his comrades.
 
They were his
friends.

He fired four quick, silent bursts and then a further burst at the
machine gunner who was still alive.
 
Black blood fountained from the man's throat as the second burst hit him,
and he fell over the pintle mount, his arms seeming to reach out toward the
wire.

"Blockhouse power off," said a voice in his ear.
 
"The wire is tame."

Shanley cut his way through the fences and drove the Guntrack toward the
blockhouse.

Al Lonsdale had watched the entire exchange through high-powered vision
equipment.
 
He reached down a helping
hand as Shanley climbed the Clucas pole.
 
"Welcome aboard," he said.

Dana smiled at Shanley as he stepped on the OP roof.
 
It was a quiet smile, but it said all that
was needed.
 
Shanley thought he was going
to be sick, but then things seemed to come into focus and he looked at Al
Lonsdale and nodded.
 
"Yeah,"
he said.
 
"No problems."

"I should hope not," said Lonsdale with a slight smile.

Then they all heard the same transmission.
 
It came from Brick Stephens, who was on road
watch.

"More guests at the party, boss," said Stephens, his voice
quiet but clear, his remark directed specifically at Fitzduane.
 
"Tanks, APCs and
trucked troops on the perimeter road and heading north towards us.
 
ETA five to ten minutes.
 
They are moving fairly fast.
 
The sound was blanketed by the hill, but
you'll be able to hear them now."