The Devil's Footprint (58 page)

She ordered the pilot to circle the observation post on the rim.
 
As they approached there was an enormous
explosion and the small Alouette helicopter was caught in the blast and thrown
up and to one side.
 
For a few long
seconds she thought they were going to crash, and then the pilot regained
control.

He looked at her briefly, mutely pleading.
 
Sweat beaded his forehead and he looked quite
terrified.
 
She could see that he wanted
to ask permission to return to the airfield, but he was even more terrified of
her.
 
She grunted.
 
It was just as well.
 
No weak man was going to break when Oshima
was in command.

She was beginning to get a rough idea of what had happened.
 
Given the isolated location and the large
guard force, the twin valleys of the Devil's Footprint had looked exceptionally
secure.
 
However, with the benefit of
hindsight it was easy to see that once the attacking force had seized the
observation post and the high ground, both valleys were vulnerable.

Still, who could have expected such heavy firepower to be deployed
against them and for it to be deployed with such speed and ferocity?
 
The defending force, apart from substantial
manpower, had heavy armor and other weapons at its disposal.
 
It should have been able to put up some kind
of resistance and to buy time until relief arrived.

No, this was not just a conventional commando raid against them by
soldiers on foot.
 
This was some new kind
of warfare, faster and more deadly than anything she had either experienced or
heard of before.

"Pilot, I want you to land behind the Yaibo barracks," she
said, pointing.

The pilot looked at her, ashen.
 
He
tried to speak, but his mouth had gone dry.
 
He licked his lips and tried again.
 
"Oshima-
san
," he
croaked, "that is insane.
 
You can
see for yourself that the camp is a death trap."

Oshima drew her 9mm Makarov pistol and placed the tip of the barrel
against the pilot's scrotum.

"Listen, you fuckhead," she snarled.
 
"If you don't do what I tell you, I'm
going to shoot this decoration off.
 
Whatever it contains, it certainly isn't balls."

The pilot started shaking.
 
But he
landed.

Amid the destruction and the carnage, the Yaibo barracks was still
miraculously intact
.
  
Oshima
felt a surge of pride as she approached.
 
Though the perimeter guards had been vanquished, the force she had
trained was made of tougher stuff.
 
There
might be casualties, but most would have survived, she was sure of it.
 
Two minutes after she entered the building,
over the background sounds of conflagration and the moaning of the wounded and
the sharp crack of exploding ammunition, the pilot heard the most terrible
bloodcurdling scream.
 
It was piercingly
loud and it rose to a crescendo before it fell, and then this dreadful cadence
was repeated again and again.

It was the most awful sound he had ever heard in his life.

Five minutes later, Oshima staggered out the front door and then
collapsed.
 
The pilot went to help her,
and as he lifted her to her feet he saw with horror that her clothing was
completely saturated in blood.

She clawed at him and he pushed her away in panic, but she clung on to
him and would not let go.
 
Her
fingernails ripped his face, and he could feel his flesh tearing.

"They're all dead!" she screamed.
 
"Everyone!
 
Everyone!
 
Everyone!
 
Everyone!
 
They're all dead!

"There's nothing but blood!
 
BLOOD!
 
BLOOD!
 
BLOOD!
 
BLOOD!"

The words hammered out of her.
 
Her
spittle showered his face.
 
He wanted to
retch.
 
At first he thought Oshima was
experiencing some kind of breakdown, but then he realized that what he was
witnessing was nothing of the sort.

It was an uncontrollable rage.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Outside the Devil's Footprint,

Tecuno
,
Mexico

Seven minutes had passed.

Fitzduane was methodically searching the terrain around them with the
FLIR, but there was no sign of Calvin.
 
Behind him, Cochrane was doing much the same thing with his night-vision
equipment.

Three mercenary soldiers ran out of the black smoke that had now settled
over the perimeter road and stopped in shock as, at the last minute, they saw
the menacing black wedge shape that was Shadow One.

In their initial panic as the road column was shot up, they had dropped
their weapons.
 
Most were
campesinos
— young men, peasants,
wanting no more than to go home and be with their families.

They stared at the Guntrack, frozen with fear, uncertain what to do.

Let them live, said Fitzduane's heart.
 
They are the enemy, but they can do us no harm.

Kill them, his mind said.
 
They
have seen us and they just might say something that could help the opposition,
and
I owe it to my people to see they are
given every chance
.

I have no choice.

He fired the pump-action grenade launcher that was kept clipped beside
the driver's seat and the three soldiers shot backward as a swarm of hundreds
of miniature fléchette darts ripped them asunder.

He felt nauseated.

A laser beam cut through the darkness and settled on him.
 
He could imagine the enemy gunner registering
his aim and he knew, at that precise moment, that he was going to die.
 
He thought of Boots and he felt a great
sadness that he would never see his young son grow.
 
He thought of...

The laser flicked out and then on again, and there was an irregular
rhythm to the beam.
 
Then the beam slowly
rose to the vertical and cut into the night sky pointing at the stars.

Morse code:
 
‘C-A-L-V-I-N.’

The exhilaration that follows despair gripped him.
 
He gunned the engine and drove toward the
source of the light.
 
He'd been an
idiot.
 
The light was the type that only
Team Rapier could see through special filters.
 
This was not the enemy.

A skirmishing line of enemy troops showed up ahead of them just beyond
the light source.
 
Through his night
vision goggles, Fitzduane could see they were armed and purposeful and that
this was a different problem to the three he had just killed.

He accelerated and turned slightly to the left so that he would break
ground above the light source and have a clear shot at the enemy.

The mercenaries had no night vision goggles, but the heard the rapidly
approaching engine noise and opened fire.
 
Flashes could be seen in the darkness, and there was the zip and crack
of rounds passing over and around the Guntrack.

An aiming laser flashed out from Cochrane's GECAL and a moment later the
weapon began to fire.
 
Fitzduane halted
the Guntrack and emptied the magazine of his grenade launcher.
 
In just five seconds, the area occupied by
the mercenary patrol was hit by more than a thousand metal projectiles.
 
Their firing ceased.

The friendly laser flashed on again.
 
Fitzduane zigzagged down the hill toward it and at last Calvin could be
seen.
 
He lay there on his back tied to
the wing with carabiners, but there was no sign of the fuselage.

Fitzduane leaped out while Ross kept watch, cut the aviator free, then bundled
him into the front gunner's seat, gave him a headset, and plugged him into the
intercom.

The entire exercise took no more than forty-five seconds.
 
Calvin was bruised and had a broken ankle and
was in some pain, but otherwise he seemed in reasonable condition.
 
Fitzduane felt an overwhelming sense of
relief.
 
He contemplated giving the
aviator morphine but decided against it.

The grim fact was that someone might need it more urgently later.
 
The shooting was not necessarily over.
 
They had to exfiltrate successfully, and
that, in special-forces operations such as this, was always the hardest
part.
 
The element of surprise was gone
and now they were the hunted.

He talked to Calvin as he drove to distract him from the pain.
 
"You went up with an engine,
Calvin," he said as he sped through the night toward the RV point,
"but came down without one.
 
What
gives?"

Calvin forced a laugh.

"After I got the helicopter gunship with the RAW, I got chased by a
much smaller machine.
 
It wasn't armed as
such, but someone inside it had a weapon and went after me as if it was
personal.

"Well, I maneuvered every which way and my whole machine started
coming apart.
 
The struts had already
been damaged over the airfield and jury-rigged, and these
kind
of gymnastics were just too much.
 
The
fuselage and engine decided to go their own way, and I had no parachute.
 
And I was a couple thousand feet up.
 
In addition, AK-47 rounds were pinging off
the engine.
 
It was a little hairy."

Fitzduane could imagine the reality behind the dry account.
 
"So what did you do, Calvin?" he
said.
 
"Wake up?"

"I went back in aviation history a bit," said Calvin through
clenched teeth as the Guntrack hit a rough patch.
 
"The chopper was shooting at the
fuselage for the obvious reason that that is where the pilot sits."

"So?" said Fitzduane encouragingly.

"Flex flying all started with the wing alone," said
Calvin.
 
"Suspending a fuselage for
the pilot to sit in and to hold an engine came much later.
 
Well, that being the case, the solution was
obvious."

"Not to me, it isn't," said Fitzduane.
 
Wearing PNV goggles, his world endless shades
of green, he was driving over the appalling terrain as fast as the terrain
would allow, and his concentration — to put it mildly — was not entirely on
Calvin's story.

"I clipped my harness to the wing and then cut free the fuselage and
engine," said Calvin.
 
"The
helicopter followed the fuselage down and blew it apart as it fell, and I just
flew the wing down like a hang glider.
 
It worked fine.
 
I didn't need a
parachute.
 
I don't know why I was
worried.

Fitzduane nearly choked with laughter and reaction.

"Fucking A!" said Cochrane.

Fitzduane recovered and then started to laugh again, and the Guntrack
slithered and bucked and jumped and raced across the shale and gravel toward
the RV, and up in the sky their salvation flew toward them.

Unfortunately, it was short one critical aircraft.

22

Madoa Air Base,

Tecuno
,
Mexico

Reiko Oshima stood in the shower for three minutes and washed General
Luis Barragan's blood off her body.
 
It
disgusted her.
 
It was a symbol of their
failure.

Her outburst had left her drained and tired, but the water was soothing
and she could feel her resolution returning.

Her strength of will was one of her strongest assets, and now she focused
on what should be done immediately.
 
Recriminations would have to wait.
 
There was a score to settle now, and she was fairly sure she knew how.

She hastily toweled her long black hair to an acceptably damp state and
put it up in a bun.
 
Then she dressed in fresh
desert camouflage fatigues tucked into combat boots and donned full combat
webbing.
 
Finally she tied in place the
ritual
hachimaki
— the headband —
worn by Yaibo and strapped a
katana
to her back.

She paused as she finished and looked in the mirror and was pleased with
what she saw.
 
She had regained her poise
and her command quality.
 
She was once
again a force to be respected and feared.
 
The brief time lost taking the shower and dressing had been worth it.

She looked at her watch.
 
It read
0209.
 
It seemed an age but was actually
only just over an hour since Luis had bled to death on top of her.
 
She shuddered.

There was a banging on the door.
 
"Oshima-
san
," said a
panting voice.
 
"Please come to the
operations room immediately.
 
Governor
Quintana is calling and wants a full situation report."