The Devil's Footprint (67 page)
Read The Devil's Footprint Online
Authors: Victor O'Reilly
Carlson
smiled.
"Well, some things have
changed," he said, "but when you get right down to it LGOPS are still
the secret."
"Enlighten
me," said Fitzduane.
Al Lonsdale
grinned.
"LGOPS — Little Groups
Of
Paratroopers," he said.
"And
that's it?" said Fitzduane.
"Airborne,
sir!" said Carlson seriously.
The
reply cracked out.
Fitzduane
nodded slowly.
*
*
*
*
*
Oshima had
planned the takeover of the Devil's Footprint over many months.
From the
beginning she had known that Diego Quintana would turn on her.
In the end, she was surprised that he had
acted so clumsily.
Signaling
his intentions as if he alone were the determinant of the outcome.
In truth, some
of Quintana's complacency was justified.
Oshima knew that directly superseding Quintana's rule over all of Tecuno
state would not have been possible.
Leaving out her terrorist background, she was Japanese, a woman, and not
from Tecuno — three strikes against her.
Accordingly, she had initially planned to work through her lover, Luis
Barragan.
That was a promising plan, but
even before Barragan's untimely death it had been fairly certain it was not
going to work.
She held Barragan in
sexual thrall, but even so, he remained loyal to Quintana.
Rejecting the
option of working through Barragan and making a play for the whole state, it came
to her that taking over only the plateau and the Devil's Footprint was the
obvious alternative.
It was all
that was necessary.
She did not want to
hold enemy territory permanently.
She
wanted to inflict as much damage as possible on
There were
many who remembered the unforgivable insults of
Her achievements would not go
unheralded.
Yaibo would rise again.
New recruits would flock to her.
The myth of
punctured.
After killing
Quintana, Oshima had worked furiously to consolidate her position.
The steel supergun was aimed at
fire, but that would alert the Americans and provoke an immediate
counterstrike.
No, what was really required
was a multiple-strike capability.
Then
the Americans would think twice before replying.
With
Destroying a terrorist base when the price
was serious damage to your principal financial and commercial center was the
kind of trade-off the American population would not accept.
So Oshima held
her fire while her people worked frantically to erect two more of the special
concrete weapons.
The pipes had been cast
months ago and the breeches constructed.
Rheiman had said the concrete guns would work and thought she had
despised the
man,
she had the utmost faith in his
technical ability.
To be able to
hit the capital of the
risk.
Now all she needed was time.
The new weapons would take several more days
to install fully.
Then, for all
practical purposes, the Devil's Footprint would be invulnerable.
*
*
*
*
*
Carlson, back
in full uniform, drove Fitzduane and Lonsdale the short distance over to First
Brigade Headquarters.
The building was
an unpretentious two-story rectangular block with a basement.
A short flight of steps led up to the main
entrance.
Set into the
floor as they entered was the slogan "The Devils
In
Baggy Pants."
Fitzduane
stopped for a closer look.
"We got
the name in World War Two," said Carlson.
"So our target is well named."
"It seems
they're all over the place," said Fitzduane.
They turned left and followed Carlson down a
corridor to a corner office, which ran out of floor space after a desk, a
couple of stuffed chairs, and a mound of combat equipment had been squeezed in.
Carlson
removed a Kevlar helmet from one of the armchairs and propped it on top of a
filing cabinet.
"What are?" he
said.
"Devils,"
said Fitzduane and Lonsdale in unison.
A trooper
brought in Cokes.
Carlson took a slug,
then
sat back.
He
opened his mouth to speak and then paused.
"I feel a
little stupid trying to explain
Airborne
doctrine to
two guys who've been there," he said eventually.
"Hell, you people jumped in there only a
few days ago."
"So we
did," said Fitzduane.
He sounded
almost surprised.
"But shoot and
scoot is not the same as..."
"Jump and
thump," said Lonsdale helpfully.
"Quite
so," said Fitzduane.
"So
assume we know nothing."
"Or close
to nothing," said Lonsdale.
"Give or take a few details."
Carlson
shrugged.
"The first thing to
understand is that modern airborne assault techniques have evolved a great
deal.
"In the
early days of the airborne a half century ago, paratroopers jumped and fought
pretty much with what they carried.
They
had probably landed in the wrong place and were widely scattered.
They had no close-air support, lousy communications,
limited firepower, and no armor or artillery.
They were light troops and their capabilities were limited.
Even so, airborne training seemed to produce
a particularly high caliber of combat soldier.
The record speaks for itself.
Paratroopers get the job done.
"An
airborne assault today is a whole different ball game.
It is force projection carrying with it
lethal firepower of a vastly greater order of magnitude.
"The
foundation is good intelligence.
Today
when we go in, thanks to satellite reconnaissance and other capability —
including advance teams on the ground — we normally know everything we need to
know about the enemy right down to his shoe size.
Accurate and comprehensive
intel
is the rock on which we build.
"Next
phase is to get together with the air force and try and make sure that every
identified threat is neutralized before we show up.
We're not trying to give the bad guys a fair
fight.
If they are all dead before we
jump, that is just fine by us.
The idea
is to identify every defensive position, every radar, every enemy soldier with
a missile, every form of opposition — and take out the lot of them before we go
in.
So every target is listed in advance
and then allocated.
Stealth fighters
start the whole thing.
Then, layer by
layer, other elements in the package cut in and peel the defenses away.
F16s follow the Stealth boys.
A10s follow the F16s.
Mostly smart weapons are used, so what we see
is what we hit.
"We don't
just kill the enemy.
We blind him.
Wild Weasels take out his radar.
ECM-equipped aircraft and helicopters blanket
the electronic spectrum and shut down his communications.
"Our
window of maximum vulnerability is really just before we jump.
Aircraft dropping paratroopers can't jink
around.
They've got to fly slow and
steady.
For that
couple
of minutes we are sitting ducks for triple A or some hotshot with a handheld
missile.
"The good
news is that A10s and C130 Spectre gunships act as our guardian angels during
that window.
The A10s can take out
anything heavy.
The gunships can deliver
pinpoint fire.
From three thousand feet
up they can see and kill anything that moves.
Higher up, JSTARS and AWACS watch the ground and air.
Way low down, if we plan it right, Kiowa
Warrior helicopter gunships hover out of sight.
They have mast-mounted sights and high-magnification devices.
The are
the Airborne
commander's eyes.
And they have teeth
too.
If the air force is otherwise
occupied, the Kiowas have Hellfire missiles, rockets, and heavy machine
guns."
As Carlson
spoke, Fitzduane was translating his words into a mental model and then
relating it to the realities of combat.
Everything the Airborne colonel was saying hung together, and yet the
chances of something going seriously wrong were considerable.
Intelligence
was never perfect.
You could see a great
deal from the air, but so much of modern weaponry was small and powerful.
If the defenders knew what they were doing, a
handheld missile was not left on permanent display for all to see.
It was brought out at the last moment.
It was moved around.
Positions were camouflaged.
Vision equipment could see through darkness,
smoke, and haze, but not into a concrete bunker.
Equipment broke down.
And there was always the human factor.
People missed things, they got confused,
they
fucked up.
Particularly they fucked up under pressure.
And
people trying to kill
you was
serious pressure.
You
could ameliorate it with training and the right disciplines, but it was always
there.
"What do
you hate most?" said Fitzduane.
"Before
we land, anything that can shoot down a troop-carrying aircraft makes us
unhappy," said Carlson.
"Paratroopers hate to die before they've had a chance to fight.
"Once
we've landed, we get pissed off by armor, artillery, and mines in roughly that
order.
And then there is the NBC
area.
None of that is a barrel of
laughs."
NBC
"
nuclear
,
biological, chemical.
A terrifying
amount of misery summed up by three letters, reflected Fitzduane.
Carlson
smiled.
"But, hey, it's an
imperfect world.
And we lov-v-v-e to
jump."
He caught
Fitzduane's look.
"Well, to land,
anyway," he added.
Fitzduane
looked at Lonsdale.
He was getting some
ideas.
"Can we contribute?"
Lonsdale
pursed his lips.
"Probably,"
he said.
Regardless of rank, you got
$112 a month while on airborne status.
You could earn more in tips in one night in many bars.
But the money
was not really the point.
*
*
*
*
*
They were back
in the SCIF.
In full name
was the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, a title that required excessive
energy just to think about pronouncing.
Fitzduane was
becoming to seriously hate the divisional plans and operations facility.
Grateful nations tended to erect monuments in
memory of their warriors.
In the case of
the 82
nd
Airborne, he was of the opinion that bronze statues could
be usefully bypassed in favor of an air-conditioned ventilation system and
deodorizer that really worked.
The place
was getting like the
The atmosphere was thick enough to slice and
dice.
The planning
staff
were
not going to need to acclimatize when they arrived in some tropical
hellhole.
The climatic conditions of the
Devil's Footprint were going to be light relief.
Meanwhile,
faces shiny with sweat, clothing looking as if it had been run through a sauna,
and tempers were getting frayed.
Files
and papers adhered to hands as if with thinned-out treacle.
Fingers lifted from computer keyboards
sounded as if they were being detached from the suckers of overfriendly octopi.