The Devil's Footprint (74 page)

"Bring up
the Devil's Footprint," said Oshima, "and let me speak to the
supergun commander."

The link with
the Devil's Footprint was by fiber-optic cable, with multiple
redundancy
built in.
 
The images came up immediately.

As she looked,
Oshima felt a surge of exhilaration.
 
The
supergun valley was not being attacked.
 
Somehow, she
suspected,
the American must know
what she had and they were afraid to act directly against the weapon in case
they set it off.
 
They were strong,
incredibly strong, but they were vulnerable.

"Commander,
look," said Carranza.
 
"Look at
the radar."

The screens
had been blank.
 
Now, suddenly, the radar
silhouettes of dozens of approaching aircraft could be seen.
 
The speeds were slow.
 
These were not fighter bombers.
 
These were transport planes.
 
Even for transports they were flying slowly.

"Paratroops,"
breathed Carranza.
 
"Incredible!
 
Lightly armed paratroops.
 
What a target!
 
We'll slaughter
them in the air and we'll slaughter them on the ground.
 
When they jump, their air cover will have to
cease and then we'll get them.
 
Thank God
for General Barragan's foresight."

Most of Madoa
airfield's eighty-nine fixed weapons positions had been either destroyed or
badly damaged.
 
However, that was of
limited significance.
 
The positions were
lightly manned and were primarily decoys.

The real
defenses were buried.
 
They included a
heavily armored mechanized force and a hand surface-to-air held missile
unit.
 
The SAMs had been trained to
regard their main enemy as the helicopter, but lumbering C130s traveling at
much the same speed would be an even easier target.

"Shall I
give the order, Commander?" said Carranza to Oshima.

Oshima waited
until the lead aircraft were within visual range and showing up on the
monitors.
 
Carranza had been right.
 
The bombing had virtually stopped.
 
Another few seconds.

Suddenly she
could see black dots falling from the aircraft and then parachutes opening.

"Now!"
she said.

Carranza spoke
into his microphone.
 
From bunkers and
tunnels all over the airfield, aircraft-killing teams erupted and took up
position in prepared fighting holes.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Twenty
thousand feet up, an air force C141 command-and-control aircraft circled and
monitored the unfolding battle below.

Inside the
spacious cargo bay of the aircraft, slide-in communications modules housed a
combined services team.
 
Data was being
fed in from AWACS and JSTARS aircraft and from a host of other sources,
including Special Forces A-teams that were monitoring a chain of lookout posts
around the perimeter.

The closest
monitoring was being carried out by a Delta unit who were actually inside the
terrorist base.
 
They HAHOed into the
center of Madoa Air Base under cover of the opening assault fires and were now
concealed on the roof of the main hangar and in the control tower.

They had
assailed the control tower expecting it to be fully manned, but in fact it was
empty.
 
The occupants had had little to
do since most of their air assets were destroyed in the microlight raid, and as
soon as the first bombs had dropped they had headed for a bunker.
 
Delta had the control tower to
themselves
.

It commanded a
perfect view of the terrorist air base, and even with its windows blown in by
the blasts of the initial bombing, it was an ideal observation point.

Delta troopers
concealed on the hangar roof four hundred meters away regarded their colleagues
in the tower with some envy.
 
They did
not know much about the bird life on the Tecuno plateau, but whatever was there
had seemed to produce copiously and to regard the roof as its dumping ground.

The soldiers
were lying in years of accumulated bird shit.
 
It made the going hazardous and the smell vile.
 
It might have been funny, except that the
second man to land on the roof had slipped on the mess and broken his
neck.
 
Lifeless, he had been unable to
stop himself and his body had slid over the edge to have several feet below the
parapet.
 
He had been hauled back by his
parachute harness without being seen and now lay in a gully temporarily out of
sight and mind.

Colonel Dave
Palmer, the 82
^nd
's divisional executive officer, was the senior
military man in the C141, and he regarded the unfolding developments with a
blend of concern, fascination, and frustration.
 
If military logic had had anything to do with it, the Commanding General
would have been in the command-and-control aircraft.
 
It was the location with the best position
from which to direct the battle.

However, there
were some situations where immediate military logic did not come into it and
overall unit pride was considered more important.
 
In the 82
^nd
officers led from the
front, and that meant the General Mike Gannon jumped at the head of his troops.

Palmer sweated
as he watched the terrorist base transform itself.
 
Within five minutes of the cessation of the
bombing, dozens of new fighting positions had appeared as top cover was pulled
away, and there looked to be several hundred smaller fighting holes.

For the
moment, his focus was entirely on antiaircraft defenses, particularly SAMS and
heavy machine guns.
 
Data flowed in, and
after it was plotted and assigned a targeting number, the mission was passed to
a killing team.

Palmer was
soon convinced that virtually all the hidden antiaircraft defenses had now been
plotted, but the final test was about to come.
 
Any missiles or gun positions still hidden were certain to be revealed
when the attacking aircraft were actually overhead.
 
Far below him he watched the first flight
approach the airfield.
 
The radar showed
them flying low, straight, and level, as they had to do to
effect
an accurate drop.

The approach
to a drop zone was always the most dangerous part of an airborne
operation.
 
For those brief few moments,
the aircraft were exposed and vulnerable and the paratroopers inside — laden
with the tools of killing though they were — were entirely helpless.

As he watched,
missiles streaked up from the airfield and first one and then another and then
most of the first flight were hit.
 
Explosions lit up the sky and pieces of flaming aircraft cascaded toward
the ground.

He felt ill as
he watched.
 
In his mind he was hooked up,
ready to jump.
 
He could see the jump
light switch from red to green and feel the slap of the jumpmaster on his
shoulder.
 
"GO!"

He shook his
head and looked across to his air force opposite number.

"Now?"
said the colonel.

"Now,"
said Palmer.

A single phrase
went out to the prepositioned air assets.
 
Two aircraft had been assigned to each air defense position, and there
were further aircraft in reserve to pick up any slack.
 
Kiowa Warriors hovered hidden behind rocks or
in folds in the ground, only their mast sights protruding.

"ACTIVATE
BARRACUDA!
 
ACTIVATE BARRACUDA!"

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

"The
radar screens have all gone blank again," said Carranza.
 
"I don't understand it.
 
A moment ago we could see the aircraft coming
in two by two like cattle into a slaughterhouse — and now there is
nothing."

"We are
being jammed, sir," said one of the operators at the console.

"Then why
didn't they jam earlier?" said Carranza.
 
"Why allow us to see their aircraft as they approach and then jam
us after most of them have been destroyed?
 
It makes no sense."

Oshima was
looking at a blank monitor.
 
The cameras
overlooking the supergun valley showed total normality.
 
Elsewhere, the airfield flickered with dozens
of fires from falling aircraft debris.
 
As she looked, she could see her troops moving out from their fighting
positions to examine the wreckage and round up any paratroopers left alive.

Oddly enough,
she could not see any parachutes on the ground, and there certainly should have
been some there by now.
 
Were they set on
fire by falling debris?
 
Had they fallen
outside the perimeter?
 
Well, it was an
oddity but of no major concern.
 
It was
probably more to do with the cameras.
 
They gave a good overall picture of the airfield, but they were no
substitute for direct vision.

Carranza had
been listening to reports from the units on the surface.
 
Initial reports were vastly encouraging and
confirmed what the monitors had shown.
 
The antiaircraft crews had enjoyed major success.
 
Nine out of the initial dozen aircraft had been
totally destroyed in a couple of minutes.

Carranza tried
to remember how many paratroops fit into a C130.
 
Something like sixty, he thought.
 
The total destroyed equated to the best part
of a battalion.

His,
Carranza's, troops were beating the Americans!
 
What all their might and technology, they could bleed too.

All the
monitors except those showing the supergun flickered and then went dull.

The
communications operator's face went gray as a further report came in.
 
"Major Carranza," he said.
 
"We have a report from Captain
Alonzo.
 
He'd like to speak to you."

Carranza took
the phone.
 
"Major," said
Alonzo's familiar voice.
 
He was one of
the best battalion commanders.
 
Imaginative and cool under pressure.
 
He never flapped.

"Major,"
said Alonzo dully.
 
"The aircraft
that we destroyed..."

"Yes,"
said Carranza.
 
"A
magnificent job.
 
Absolutely magnificent."

There was a
pause at the end of the phone.
 
Alonzo
was breathing heavily, as if he had been running or was completely stressed
out.
 
Either way, it was out of
character.
 
Alonzo was calm to the point
of deliberateness.

"Yes,
Captain," said Carranza impatiently.
 
"What is it?"

"Major,
they're drones," said Alonzo.
 
"They're all RPVs."

Carranza's
hand holding the phone fell to his side.

"What?"
said Oshima
impatiently.

Carranza
whipped the phone back up to his ear.
 
"Captain, GET BACK UNDER COVER NOW!
 
NOW!"

"CARRANZA!"
shouted Oshima.
 
"WHAT IS GOING
ON?"

"We've
been tricked," said Carranza.
 
"Those aircraft were decoys.
 
Remotely piloted vehicles.
 
Models."

"The
radar picture?" said Oshima incredulously.

"We saw
what they wanted us to see," said Carranza.
 
"They've been playing with us."

The module
suddenly shook, and this time the explosions were virtually continuous.
 
Oshima tried the phones.
 
All were silent except for the supergun.
 
Everywhere else was shut down.
 
The shaking continued.
 
The bombardment seemed without end.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Colonel Dave
Palmer checked the targeting display.

Combat at this
level was goddamn clinical.
 
You
identified targets, selected the best tool to handle the job in much the same
manner as choosing a golf club for a tricky shot, and then passed the chosen
the details.

The flight
leaders muttered, "Roger that, Big Daddy," and that was that.

Minutes —
sometimes seconds — later, men died.
 
Some quickly.
 
Some slowly and horribly.
 
The scale of the destruction was vast, the human impact impossible to
truly comprehend.

But this was
the reality of war.
 
This was what he
trained for and this was what he was good at.
 
From 20,000 feet, he could not see the blood or hear the screams.
 
So why was it so much worse at this remove?