The Devil's Footprint (65 page)
Read The Devil's Footprint Online
Authors: Victor O'Reilly
Quintana
stroked his mustache.
That beautiful
hair, that
perfect face scarred so horribly, the still
so compelling.
That aura of menace mixed
with unbridled sexuality.
He had never
slept with her, and now there really was not the time.
Barragan had enjoyed her and that was as
close as he was likely to get, though he had had descriptions of how she was
and what she would do.
Of how she tasted
and smelled and sounded.
Of every intimate perversion.
His
brother-in-law had been obsessed by her.
She will do anything, Diego!
Anything!
A woman who
would do anything was nice, but Quintana was not short of women who would do
whatever he required.
And a leader had
to control his desires.
There had to be
an example of discipline.
Oshima's eyes
had gone dead.
She seemed to have
withdrawn into herself.
She was still
physically present but was behaving as if she were utterly alone.
It was almost as if she was praying.
Quintana
smiled.
The thought of Oshima praying
was a quaint notion.
But she was a
strange woman.
There she stood in her
stained combat clothing with a gun on her hip and that damned Japanese sword
strapped to her back like some Fury from Hell.
And her posture was that of a nun praying in front of some relic.
Her head was now bowed as if in submission.
"Tomas,"
he said.
"
Jefe
," said Tomas, stepping
forward.
He was a head taller than the
others in the bodyguard and had been with Quintana longer than most.
He was loyal, and he killed without comment
or scruple.
He was armed with an
automatic rifle and wore a razor-sharp machete at his waist.
"Kill
her," said Quintana.
Tomas looked
at Oshima almost as if seeking her approval.
She raised her
head and looked directly into Quintana's eyes.
The vacant look had gone.
It was
as if she was recharged with energy.
Her
eyes blazed, and in them there was knowledge and amusement.
"You
would kill me,
jefe
?" she said
mockingly.
"I do what you ask, I
train and discipline your men, and you order my death.
Is that just?"
"Kill her
now
, Tomas," said Quintana.
"I train
men well, Diego," said Oshima.
She
nodded at Tomas, and Diego Quintana, Governor of Tecuno, felt himself being
grabbed and forced to his knees.
Oshima's sword
hissed from her scabbard and, impacting on Quintana's skull, sliced on down
until the Governor was cut completely in two.
The one
bodyguard reeled back drenched in blood, as if caught by a power hose.
He stood there openmouthed, holding half a
body, as if he did not quite believe what had happened.
Oshima flicked
her
katana
clean and slid it back
into its home with one neat, continuous movement.
Quintana was already forgotten.
Rheiman's
legacy was not.
The Devil's Footprint
was now in her hands and the supergun was going to be put to some immediate
good use.
It was trained on
and it was loaded.
Once fired,
the Americans could do nothing to stop the missile.
They had no antimissile defense.
The famed Patriot was designed to shoot down
aircraft.
It might manage the occasional
Scud, but a small ballistic missile such as that from the supergun was
unstoppable.
The
billion a year, but against ballistic missiles the
defenseless.
*
*
*
*
*
By popular
demand, Fitzduane had been sitting at the head of the table, but as the evening
wore on the orderly layout of the celebration dinner degenerated roughly in
proportion to the increase in alcohol consumed and the noise level.
Everyone had
settled in for a long night.
Figuring he
was likely to need all the support he could get, he had reversed his chair and
was leaning on the back, watching Maury doing Russian dancing on the tabletop.
All things
considered, Maury was doing a creditable job, but it would have helped if the
table had been cleared first.
As his
ungainly legs shot out to the ever-increasing tempo of the hand-clapping,
bottles, glasses, and other accoutrements flew in every direction.
It was
chaos.
It was a terrific party.
Even Grant Lamar was letting his guard
down.
He had discarded his jacket and
his tie was loose and his hair was disheveled.
For the first time, Fitzduane saw not the
more than two decades earlier had penetrated deep into North Vietnamese lines
to rescue American prisoners at Son Tay.
Lamar had been there.
He understood
.
Al Lonsdale
stood up, swaying slightly, a freshly opened bottle of beer frothing in his
hand.
He chugalugged half of it and then
pointed at Maury.
"Jesus, Maury,
you're wrecking the place.
We've got to
clear the table first."
He seized the
linen tablecloth and was soon joined by Cochrane and the others.
"One-two-
three,
PULL!"
Maury leaped
off the table as the command cut in and grabbed for the ornate central light
fixture.
Lonsdale and
his cronies, faced with no resistance, crashed backward to land in a tangle of arms
and legs and tablecloth against the wall.
Maury shouted
something triumphant in Russian at having escaped the fate that had been
planned for him.
And then the
light fixture gave way.
*
*
*
*
*
Fitzduane
awoke slowly.
He had the
sense it was afternoon — whatever afternoon was — but the effort of looking at
his watch was not something he felt he should rush into.
Besides, he could not see.
It was rather
nice not being able to see.
If he could
ignore someone bashing his head with a baseball bat and the feeling he had
swallowed rat poison, it was pleasantly peaceful.
He remembered
you had to do something if you wanted to see, but exactly what that involved
was proving elusive.
Eyes!
Eyes came into it.
He was sure of it.
He thought
about eyes for a while.
He had some, he
was sure, but how you activated them was another matter.
Perhaps there was a switch.
Well, it all
seemed like too much effort.
The world
could go on without him.
He slept
again.
*
*
*
*
*
The noise was
vile, horrendous,
horrible
.
It screamed at him, slicing through his safe,
warm igloo of sleep like some manic snowplow.
"Uuuagh!"
he groaned.
"What the
fuck!" said a hoarse voice that seemed to emanate from somewhere in the
neighborhood.
The banging
came next.
Thump!
Thump!
Thump!
Fitzduane was reminded of
sheltering in some bunker while incoming artillery zeroed in.
Only, this was much worse.
Much,
much worse!
"I'm
going to shoot them down," said the hoarse voice.
"Where's my gun?
Has anyone seen my
gun
Where
the fuck am I, anyway?"
There were
bangs and crashes and then the sound of falling.
Fitzduane decided he had better do
something.
He pushed his eyelids up and
a vague blur appeared.
He moved his
watch close to his eyes.
It did not
help.
The watch face seemed to have
taken up swimming.
He shook it a bit,
but it still would not cooperate.
It was
about as static and well-defined as a pulsating jellyfish.
His hand touched
a vase.
There were flowers in it.
He put his fingers into the neck of the vase
and they came back wet.
He removed the
flowers and poured the water over his upturned face.
It felt marvelous.
The thumping
started again.
He had not been aware it
had stopped.
There was
light coming from somewhere.
He shuffled
toward it, one hand feeling the wall, and stopped when he encountered a
tensioned cord.
The cord did
something, he was sure of it.
Good or
bad, he did not know.
Either way, it was
coming in handy to hang on to.
He swayed and
pulled the cord to steady himself.
Light flooded
the room.
The
Jima
Hurriedly, he
closed the drapes.
Muffled shouting was
now mingled alternating with the banging noise.
He headed toward the door, silently praying they would not use the bell
again.
Another blast would surely kill
him.
"I can't
find my gun," said a voice.
Fitzduane's
eyes swiveled slowly and grittily toward the noise.
The process seemed to take an effort akin to
sailors hauling up the anchor of a ship-of-the-line with a creaking windlass.
Lonsdale lay
on a collapsed coffee table in his underwear and cowboy boots.
His eyes were closed and his hands were
flailing in slow motion.
Various other
bodies lay littered around the room.
Vague memories of the previous night's shenanigans came back to him.
He felt like
smiling, but his facial muscles did not seem able to respond.
A party to die for.
It seemed quite possible he'd succeed.
He leaned
against the door and fumbled for the latch.
There was a large drawing pinned to the back of the door.
It had been done with a black felt pen on the
back of one of the restaurant's giant menus.
The sketch
showed the devil with his arms up, dancing as a circle of raiders fired at his
feet.
The body of each raider was
loosely sketched, but the heads had been drawn with some care and each could be
identified.
Fitzduane himself, Lonsdale,
Cochrane, Chifune, Oga.
They were all
there.
The drawing had been signed:
Grant Lamar.
The slogan was
simple:
‘The Devil Raiders.’
Memories
suddenly came flooding back.
The Devil's Footprint.
They had done it.
They had really
done it.
They had done the impossible
and had lived to tell the tale.
Except Steve.
Poor bastard.
He realized
then that he had never expected to live.
The odds had been too great.
The
planning too rushed.
It had to be tried,
but he had expected to die.
But they had
done it — IT WAS OVER!
He opened the
door.
Kilmara stood outside in uniform,
looking unusually pressed and polished and sharp.
But he was as
nothing compared to the paragon beside him.
Polished jeep boots with a shine so bright that Fitzduane felt he should
have screwed up his eyes — except that they were screwed up already.
A uniform that clearly had been
intimidated into discarding even the smallest crease.
A row of medals that was a
one-man insult to the peace movement.
A face that needed only bronzing to look instantly at
home on a war memorial.
A maroon paratrooper's beret.
The All-American divisional
patch of the 82
nd
Airborne.
"What's
up, Doc?" said Fitzduane.
"God, you
look horrible," said Kilmara.
"May we come in?
This
corridor is losing its charm.
We've been
here so long, we're taking root."