The Devil's Footprint (45 page)

Fitzduane was silent.
 
This beast
was terrifying, but it was interesting.
 
It would be more interesting still if they could land in one piece.

"Let's head for the floor," he said.

"In a few minutes," said Calvin.
 
"First, Colonel, I've just got to show
you what this baby can really do."
 
He sideslipped and then put the baby aircraft into a steep dive.
 
Seconds later they were flying upside down.

"This is horrible," shouted Fitzduane.
 
"And what the fuck use is it being
upside down?"

There was a long pause, and then suddenly they were the right way up
again.
 
"I never thought about
that," said Calvin.

17

Fitzduane slowed to a halt, stood absolutely still, and then seemed to
merge with the surrounding trees.

He had been running for an hour in full camouflaged fatigues and combat
equipment, and despite the relative chill of the predawn air, he was drenched
in sweat.

He wanted to wipe his face.

He remained immobile, his Calico submachine gun now ready to fire.
 
There was a hundred-round magazine on the
weapon and six more in his load-bearing vest.
 
He was carrying a further arsenal in his belt pouches.
 
Training so heavily loaded was not the most
comfortable way to start the day, but the unit trained hard and the tone was
set from the top.

People normally noticed movement itself before identifying
what
it was that was moving.

What had he seen?

There was some light in the sky, but the tree cover made visibility at
ground level a somewhat inexact business.
 
It was somewhat better in the clearing, but not much.

There was another quick movement, and Fitzduane focused in on it.

There was a tree stump in the tree line at the edge of the clearing
roughly facing the entrance to his hut.

Someone was sitting on it, almost completely concealed by the surrounding
trees.
 
If he had not moved, Fitzduane
would probably to, he considered, have seen him.

A threat?
 
Not only were they inside the perimeter of Grant Lamar's Son Tay estate,
but there was additional security around the training camp itself.
 
Further, a potential attacker would not
normally sit on a tree stump, albeit under some cover.

Still.
 
A visual decoy was an old
trick.
 
You saw the one and forgot to
consider the others.

At that moment, the figure stood up and stretched.
 
Then it turned around to look in Fitzduane's
direction.

The face was hideous, distorted,
grotesque
.

Then a hand came up and peeled the face away.

It was Grant Lamar, as elegantly dressed as always, the night-vision
goggles dangling from his hand.
 
He was
smiling as he handed Fitzduane an envelope.

"It's a computer-enhanced enlargement courtesy of the National
Security Agency," he said.
 
"She's a beautiful woman."

Fitzduane tore open the envelope and stared at the picture.
 
There was not enough daylight to be certain.

He ran to his hut and snapped on the light.
 
The detail was blurred, as if slightly out of
focus.
 
Nonetheless, the likeness was
unmistakable.

"Kathleen," he whispered.
 
"Kathleen...
 
Thank
God."

Lamar entered the hut.
 
For days
Lamar had seen Fitzduane operate with a controlled purposefulness that betrayed
little emotion and at times was almost cold in its intensity.

Now the Irishman stood there with tears streaming down his cheeks.

"Only fourteen hours old," said Lamar.
 
"Straight from the Tecuno plateau
courtesy of
Aurora
.
 
Positive
confirmation."

"The Devil's Footprint?" said Fitzduane.

"The Devil's Footprint," confirmed Lamar.
 
"Huella
del
Diablo."

Fitzduane experienced such an intense feeling of joy and anger that he
did not know quite whether to laugh or cry or shout or what to do.

After a couple of minutes he wiped the tears from his face.
 
"I don't know how to thank you,
Grant," he said.

"Do the deed," said Lamar.
 
"Just do the deed."

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

The .50-caliber GECALs arrived and were fitted.

The weapon operated on the Gatling principle.
 
Each weapon had three electrically driven
rotating barrels, so while one was actually firing the other two could be
reloaded and have the crucial time necessary to cool down.
 
The rate of fire could be varied from a
thousand to two thousand rounds a minute.

A
single
.50 multipurpose
armor-piercing explosive round — correctly placed — was capable of penetrating
a light armored vehicle or downing a helicopter.

The effect of a sixty-round burst fired in less than two seconds was
awesome.
 
Conventional cover was swept
away.
 
Anything short of a main battle
tank was shredded.
 
Reinforced concrete
bunkers were drilled through as if by a jackhammer.

The weapons had quite phenomenal shock value.

The greatest benefit came from the GECALs antiaircraft capability.
 
Reaction time was in fractions of a
second.
 
Low-flying helicopters now flew
into a curtain of fire up to around 5,000 feet.
 
Above that, the small, fast-moving Guntracks were hard enough to see,
let alone hit, from the air.
 
Further,
Fitzduane had added the Shorts Starburst missile.
 
Unlike the heat-sensitive Stinger, this was
optically guided onto the target by a low-power laser beam and was immune to
conventional countermeasures like dropping flares.
 
It required some more operator skill, but a
few hours' practice resulted in a steady kill rate up to a height of 20,000
feet.
 
They shot against small Skeets
targets that were one-twentieth the size of a typical fighter aircraft.

"We're taking along a few Stingers as well, because they are compact
and everyone knows them," said Fitzduane, "but the Stinger, being
heat sensitive, is at its best shooting at a target after it has made a pass
over you.
 
Then it goes for the hot tail
of the aircraft like a bat out of hell.
 
Well, that is fine, but by that time you have already been strafed.

"The advantage of the Starburst, although it is slightly slower, is
that you can take out an aircraft
before
it can do the business, which is very nice.
 
I'm a great believer in fucking the enemy before he fucks you.
 
Also, if you find out the supposed attacker
is friendly after you have fired — an embarrassing discovery — you can steer
the thing away with the laser and detonate it safely."

Shanley nodded.
 
Fitzduane had
brought him along officially to see if the Magnavox thermal sight used on the
Stinger could be adapted to work with the Starburst as well.
 
Thermals were great at acquiring a
target.
 
You were able to detect not just
the target itself but the heat all around it.
 
Much more to see.

The unofficial reason was to sound him out on the mission.
 
Fitzduane moved on to that delicate
matter.
 
Shanley was coming through the
training with flying colors, but he had a wife and children and he was a
civilian.

"I've thought about it, Hugo," said Shanley.
 
"I've thought about it a great deal and
I've talked it over with
Lydia
.
 
The long and the short of it is
,
I've got to go on this thing.
 
I've briefed guys before dozens of missions
in the past and always wondered why they should be putting their asses on the
line for me.
 
Now I'm getting a chance to
do my bit.
 
It's just the right thing to
do.
 
I was at
Fayetteville
and I've seen what these people
will do if given the chance.
 
Well,
they've got to be stopped, and I intend to help do it."

"Fifteen of us are going out, and even if we are successful, it is
unlikely that all of us will make it back," said Fitzduane quietly.
 
"You could be killed or wounded or taken
prisoner.
 
A professional soldier takes
his chances.
 
Risk goes with the
territory.
 
For a civilian it is very
different.
 
Whatever you feel inside, you
are under no obligation to go.
 
We all
appreciate your technical input.
 
You've
nothing to prove."

Shanley looked at Fitzduane.
 
"It's the right thing," he said firmly.
 
"I know
it's
right, and so does
Lydia
.
 
We've no second thoughts.
 
Besides, Hugo, I've never seen a
better-planned mission.
 
This is gonna
work."

As he drove away, Fitzduane felt weighed down by Shanley's words.
 
He had been on enough missions t
know
that you could prepare as much as you wanted but death
came randomly on the battlefield.

Would he bring Shanley back home to his little family?
 
Who the hell really knew?
 
Faith was great, but it was not enough.

Faith and firepower and a team of the right caliber.
 
Now you were talking.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

There still remained the problem of the supergun.

Fitzduane had pored over the intelligence information of every kind on
the Devil's Footprint and amended his initial scenario to take in an assault on
the weapon, but how to destroy it physically was another matter.

There was no shortage of ideas, but all foundered on the sheer size of
the weapon and the time they would have to accomplish the task.
 
Fitzduane was adamant they were not going to
hang around.
 
Once the alarm was raised,
reinforcements from the Madoa air base could be there in twenty minutes or
less, and there were two thousand troops who were likely to arrive with
decidedly unfriendly intentions.

Acid down the barrel would work but would be dangerous to carry in
sufficient quantity.
 
Shaped charges
could damage the breech but would take time to place correctly and would leave
the bulk of the weapon unscathed.
 
Using
a plasma cutter would be possible but again would take far too long.

They considered seeding it with radioactivity until Lonsdale remarked
that Quintana would still use the weapon and it would be just tough shit on the
gun crew.
 
Quintana was not renowned for
concern about his workforce.

"What we really want to do is shake their confidence in the weapon
itself," mused Maury during one bull session.

Fitzduane pricked up his ears.
 
"Explain."

"We damage the weapon," said Maury, "the bad guys are
going to think it is worth damaging — and therefore worth repairing.
 
On the other hand, if we could do something
to the installation so the weapon would to work when test-fired, then Quintana
might be persuaded that he was on a loser, string up his scientists, and go
back to something normal like buying a few more tanks or poisoning water
supplies.
 
There is a
psychological-warfare element to counterterrorism, and we should be paying more
attention to it."

Fitzduane looked at him.
 
"Maury," he said, "you are not just a thing of beauty
with a horribly devious mind.
 
Contact
Livermore
and donate
Jaeger your golden thought.
 
I think you
may have come up
with
 
something
."

Maury looked pleased.
 
"What?" he said.

"Let
Livermore
worry about the details," said Fitzduane.
 
"That is what they are good at.
 
You just give them the slant.
 
I
think it will appeal to Jaeger.
 
He's got
that kind of mind."

"A nice detail," said Maury.
 
"I was checking on
Livermore
.
 
The first nuke they produced in 1953 had only
enough of a blast to mangle the top of the three-hundred-foot tower.
 
The second did not do much better.
 
Mind you, they have made up for it since
then."

Fitzduane smiled.
 
"Two failed
test firings in a row would be just fine down in Tecuno.
 
Go to it, Maury — now.
 
We don't have much time."