The Devil's Footprint (51 page)

Barragan groaned with pleasure as Oshima brought him to a peak of
ecstasy.
 
Visibly, the General's
cojones
were
in
better shape.

Oshima raised her head but kept it bowed.
 
Then she reached behind and released her hair.
 
In the shaded room, it was now nearly
impossible to read her expression.

The precaution was scarcely necessary.
 
Since she was out of arm's reach, Barragan gave her a slight squeeze
with his legs in acknowledgment and fell asleep.

The flaw in Barragan's plans is very simple, reflected Oshima.
 
He and Quintana are motivated by money and
see the supergun merely as a deterrent.
 
Leave us alone and we'll leave you alone.
 
All we want is one small country called
Tecuno.

But the flaw was the Reiko Oshima had altogether different plans and her
group, Yaibo, controlled the inner security perimeter, including that of the
supergun itself.
 
An independent Tecuno
was neither here nor there compared to the opportunity to inflict some serious
damage on the
United States
of America
.

Such a blow would expiate some of the rage that threatened, at times, to
engulf her, and the knowledge that it had been carried out by her would
establish her once again as a terrorist force to be reckoned with.

She could return to
Japan
and followers would flow to her.
 
The
system was rotten, and ripe for the plucking.

The first projectile to be fired from the supergun was supposed to be a
test.
 
It would not be.
 
Instead it would be a small missile of
Russian origin — not hard to purchase — targeted right at that part of
Washington
known
colloquially as the Hill.

The warhead was not nuclear.
 
It
did not need to be.
 
It was still capable
of inflicting casualties on a scale commensurate with
Hiroshima
.

Japanese politicians, dominated by
America
for half a century, would
make shocked noises and go through all the right motions.
 
But the people of
Japan
would support her.

They had not forgotten.
 
They would
never forget.

Reiko Oshima would never let them forget.

She uncoiled herself.
 
General Luis
Barragan snored on.
 
He was, in his way,
she reflected, not a bad man.
 
But he
paled compared to the only man she had ever really loved, the terrorist known
as the Hangman.
 
But her lover was dead,
and since that time she had resolved that no one would ever get close to
her.
 
Soon Barragan would die too.

In this business it is your friends who betray you, she had been taught
and she had not forgotten.
 
The inner
circle of Yaibo was regularly purged.
 
It
was a technique that worked.
 
The
terrorist leaders and dictators that survived practiced it.
 
And Stalin, who had purged more than most,
had died in his bed.

It was something of a paradox, but to survive in the world she had
chosen,
you had to kill your friends
.

It was best that death served a purpose.
 
Barragan was right.
 
Rheiman would
have to
kept
sweet for the moment — which meant
Fitzduane's woman could not be touched physically.
 
But the effect of the execution on her would
be amusing.
 
This was something she would
not be used to.
 
This would shake her up
and maybe drive her into Rheiman's arms.
 
Which would be a small revenge in its way.

The person to be executed?
 
That was no problem.
 
Who had served her best and most
faithfully?
 
Who had succored her after
she had dragged herself from
Tokyo
Bay
?

Hori would die.
 
He was the man who
least deserved to.
 
It was
appropriate.
 
History had shown he was
the most likely person to have betrayed her.
 
Who else had become close?

Jin Endo had occupied her bed much
recently,
and
her thoughts more than a little.
 
He was
young and he was devoted to her.
 
He was
a point of vulnerability.
 
He had done
well in the
United States
.
 
He had served his purpose.
 
There were always others.

Endo-
san
would die too.
 
But perhaps not yet.

No, for the moment, Hori would die alone.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Approaching the Devil's Footprint,

Tecuno
,
Mexico

"Here comes SkyEye," said Chuck Freeman, one of the Delta
contingent
, his eyes glued to image-intensifying
binoculars.
 
"Just watch that sucker
land.
 
I swear Calvin flew before he
crawled."

Fitzduane smiled and raised his own night-vision binoculars in the
direction that Chuck was indicating.
 
He
was just in time to see Calvin make one of his famed landings.

The aviator took full advantage of the airfoil qualities of the dihedral
wing and the very low stall speed of the microlight, and did not so much land
as drop the tiny aircraft gently onto the ground at the last minute after a gentle
glide with all the power switched off.

With forward momentum virtually canceled by air resistance when still
airborne, the microlight rolled for only a few yards before coming to a halt.

Fitzduane had been worried about the feasibility of finding suitable
landing and takeoff surfaces in the rough terrain, but he need not have.
 
Calvin could take off and land almost
anywhere.

The decision to bring the microlight had turned out to be a fortunate
one.
 
Their maps and satellite photos
were inadequate for the finer details of the terrain, and on several occasions
so far aerial reconnaissance had enabled them to steer around obstacles.

Guntracks could handle most surfaces, but gullies, ravines, and wadis
could pose problems.
 
Of course, even
near-vertical surfaces could be handled with the right winch technique — and
every vehicle mounted a built-in winch with a forty-nine meter cable — but
winching vehicles up and down was notoriously time-consuming, and surplus time
was a commodity that Team Rapier did not possess.

Fitzduane and Freeman helped Calvin pack up the microlight and slide it
into its travel tube.

"The recce team is on the way back, Colonel," said Calvin.
 
"They should be here in about twenty
minutes."

He was wearing black flame-resistant Nomex overalls, black body armor,
and a black helmet, so he might have looked a little like Batman except for the
black goose-down parka he wore over the top.

It was cold in the desert plateau at
night,
and
even colder when you were flying in an open cockpit, so Calvin — whose
unclothed build was slight — when fully bundled and padded out, looked more
like the exceptionally rotund Penguin.
 
Add in the night-vision goggles and he looked even more horrific.

Fitzduane thought he was probably scaring hell out of the local
vultures.
 
There did not seem to be any
more friendly bird life in the area.
 
Vultures set the tone.

Since Calvin had come recommended by people he trusted, and the mission
had been put together in a hurry, Fitzduane had not looked at his file at
first.
 
Special
forces
were NCO heavy and everyone seemed to call Calvin by his first name, so he had
assumed the man was a sergeant.
 
Though
he looked far too young, it turned out Calvin was a major.
 
It was not important.
 
What counted was not your rank but how you
did your job, and in that context the aviator was a formidable asset.

Minutes later, the recce
team were
detected over
a kilometer away by the mast-mounted FLIR on Fitzduane's Guntrack.

Weapons were trained on them until they were identified.
 
Soon they entered the perimeter of the
concealed camp.
 
It was good navigation
in this rocky wasteland, but although they were using traditional methods — it
did not come easy to put all your faith in technology — they were also equipped
with GPS, or global positioning sets, which determined one's position by
picking up pre-positioned navigation-satellite signals.

Fitzduane gave the recce team a few minutes to eat and drink and then
called a briefing.
 
He used the
flattopped rear engine compartment of his Guntrack as a map board.

The layout of the camp was now augmented by the observations of the recce
team over twenty-four hours.
 
The team
reported in detail.
 
All the electronic
intelligence in the world could not substitute for hands-on human
intelligence.
 
These people had felt the
texture of the enemy position.
 
They had
been close enough to reach out and nearly touch the very people they had come
to kill.
 
But first they had looked and
learned.

The assault plan remained intact.
 
There were changes of detail to be accommodated, but that was
normal.
 
Fitzduane summarized.

"We're going to be in position by 2200 hours.
 
At 0100 hours, having had three hours to
eyeball the target and fine-tune our understanding of the opposition, we're
going to attack.

"The assaults will be silent and simultaneous.
 
Shadow Four will infiltrate Dali and do what
has to be done on the supergun.
 
Shadow
Two will take out the blockhouse on the central spur.
 
Shadow Three and Shadow Five will enter
Salvador
, hit the Yaibo
barracks, extract Kathleen, and kill all Yaibo members, including — if we are
so lucky — Reiko Oshima.
 
Shadow One, my
track, will run interference from the other side of the perimeter road and will
coordinate.
 
Calvin will fly topside and
advisee us of any approaching hassle.
 
We
go in and out in twenty minutes — no more!
 
So no stopping for a shower, a shit, and a shave.
 
We are not tourists, people.

"Now to the detail."

The briefing continued.
 
The
twenty-four-hour reconnaissance, as well as confirming intelligence they already
possessed, had added detail that could only be gathered by close observation.

The two valleys had separate generator systems.
 
The main camp generator in
Salvador
was particularly noisy and prone to
brownouts and breakdowns.
 
It had cut out
twice while the recce team was in position, and each time a bored soldier had
left the guardhouse
a the
main gate and after ten
minutes or so had restored it to life.
 
There had been no reaction from elsewhere in the camp when the lights
had died.
 
It was clear that this was a
routine occurrence.

In contrast, the generator in Dali, while still noisy, was quieter and
manifestly more reliable.
 
There,
illuminating the maze of pipes that included the supergun, the security lights
burned bright and even.
 
Even more to the
point, it had been ascertained that the double fence that circled the camp from
the main gate at the front to the rim of the valley at the back was electrified
on the inside perimeter.
 
It would have
been convenient if this had been powered by the faulty generator in the main
camp,
Salvador
,
but unfortunately that was not so.

"That's the bad news," continued Fitzduane.
 
"However, by the standards of this
landscape, the ground beneath the fence is soft — well, vulnerable — in
places,
and the recce team have already probed an entry
point on the rim.
 
Al's team, Shadow Two,
will go in from there.
 
A regular jeep
patrol goes by every fifteen minutes, but that apart, it will be just good
old-fashioned burrowing.
 
Healthy
exercise, I'm told."

The team of Shadow Two looked appropriately thrilled.
 
In fact, their digging had been extensively
rehearsed and their Guntrack was equipped with a variety of powered tools to
cope with various contingencies.
 
The
fastest was a compressed-air powered auger that was portable and virtually
silent.
 
Other equipment was
hydraulically based and derived from devices used by rescue teams and police
SWAT teams to prize
apart
obstacles.
 
Such specialized tools could peel armor plate
back in seconds as if it were aluminum foil.