The Devil's Footprint (68 page)

"I'll buy
you an air conditioner," muttered Fitzduane.
 
"A very large air conditioner with a
Coke machine and ice-cold showers built in."

"The U.S.
Army doesn't work that way," said Lonsdale.
 
"
You
work with what you've got
.
 
A hundred
years ago, the
U.S.
cavalry had single-shot carbines and the Indians had repeating rifles.
 
Work that one out."

"If I was
Custer," said Fitzduane, "I would feel pretty bloody upset."

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Beads of sweat
formed up on Carlson's brow, slid in globule formation down his nose, waited
until over the drop zone, and then went splat
! onto
the remains of a giant cheeseburger shipped over from the Airborne PX.

"Gentlemen,"
he said formally.
 
"The 82
^nd
Airborne Division is deeply grateful for your help, but now I must ask you to
leave.
 
ASAP,
sirs."

Fitzduane
blinked.
 
It was an effort, because his
eyelids were weighed down with sweat.
 
He
thought of wiping them with a corner of his T-shirt, but there wasn't a dry
corner left.
 
He poked under the
cheeseburger, but someone else had already grabbed the napkin.

He blinked
again.
 
"Zachariah," he said,
"you guys asked us to come down here.
 
All we've done so far is help target the opposition.
 
There is still the minor matter of what the
fuck we all do when we hit the ground.
 
Do we join hands and sing?"

Carlson looked
uncomfortable.
 
"Need to know,
sir," he said.
 
"Standard
security precaution.
 
You've gotta
understand that the actual planning process is classified."

Fitzduane
stood up.
 
"We've been to the
Devil's Footprint.
 
We've tangoed and
we've come back alive, and you are standing here telling me that you're
throwing us out.
 
Am I reading you right,
Zachariah?"

"Orders,
sir," said Carlson uncomfortably.
 
"You must understand,
Hugo, that
this is a
military operation, and as far as the U.S. Army is concerned, you people are
civilians.
 
Valued citizens, but whatever
you have done in the past..."

"...we
don't need to know," said Fitzduane grimly.

"Airborne!"
said Carlson.

Fitzduane eyed
Carlson.
 
In the short time he had known
the man he had been impressed.
 
The man
was not just well-trained.
 
He was
bright, innovative, and thorough.
 
But
how could someone of this caliber put up with such manifest bullshit?
 
Fitzduane figured that in this humidity no
one was likely to notice the steam coming out of his ears.
 
He counted to ten and added another decade
and felt his mood calming slightly.

"My worry
is that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing," he said,
"let alone all the fingers and toes."

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Fitzduane and
Lonsdale headed back to First Brigade, made some calls, and got kitted out
while they were waiting for some action.
 
If they were going to jump in with the 82
^nd
they were going
to look like they belonged.
 
Around them
everyone moved just that bit faster.
 
There was electricity in the air.
 
The Airborne were going into action.

Fitzduane
abandoned his Calico submachine gun with regret, but Lonsdale was adamant.

"You've
spent too long on small unit actions where you know all your team, Hugo,"
he said.
 
"There are going to be a
shitload of aggressive young troopers on this one, and if you don't look right,
they'll waste you on reflex.
 
So wear
your Kevlar, carry your M16, and don't complain."

He stood back
and eyed Fitzduane.
 
From his jump boots
to body language, the Irishman looked completely at home in his U.S. Army
combat fatigues and equipment, but there was one thing not quite right.

Fitzduane wore
his hair cropped short but
en brosse
.
 
It was trim but not quite the
Airborne
white sidewalls with a half-inch thatched oval on
top.
 
A sort of
reversed tonsure.

"Who'll
know when I'm wearing a helmet?" said Fitzduane.

"Trust
me," said Lonsdale.
 
"It'll be
appreciated."

Within minutes
of emerging from the PX barbershop, Fitzduane knew Lonsdale had been
right.
 
It was a gesture toward the
Airborne
way, and this was Airborne territory.
 
It was a token of acceptance and, as such,
was noted.

Fitzduane eyed
his new hairstyle in a small mirror in Carlson's office.
 
It occurred to him that judging by the
tapestries he had seen, his Norman ancestors had cropped their hair in a not
dissimilar style.
 
The barbershop floor
had cheered him.
 
He was agreeably
surprised he still had that much hair to lose.

"Hugo?"

Fitzduane
turned.

Carlson stood
in the door.
 
He looked at Fitzduane's
newly cropped head and nodded approvingly.
 
"Good news and bad news," he said.
 
"Full security clearance has come
through."

"And?"
said Fitzduane.

"Back to
the SCIF," said Carlson.
 
"A
Dr. Jaeger from
Livermore
is joining us.
 
The CG is sitting
in."

"CG?"
said Fitzduane.

"Commanding
General of the 82
^nd
," said Carlson.
 
"General Mike Gannon.
 
He's a two-star and climbing.
 
A real good man, sir.
 
Airborne from way
back."

"Is he
commanding the mission?" said Fitzduane.

"This is
the Airborne, Hugo," said Carlson.
 
"General Gannon will be the first man to jump."

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Fitzduane had
once met a U.S. Marine general who looked more like a rather gentle
schoolteacher than a hard-charging combat veteran of considerable distinction.

Physically,
General Gannon was similarly cast against type.
 
But for all his slight frame, quiet voice, and courteous Southern
manner, the General was a force to be reckoned with.
 
The mantle of command authority sat easily on
his shoulders.
 
He greeted Fitzduane and
Lonsdale warmly.

They were
standing around a large planning table bearing a scale mock-up of the terrorist
positions.
 
If anything, the temperature
and humidity in the SCIF were even more unbearable.
 
Gannon sweated with everyone else but made no
other acknowledgment of the fact.
 
His
camouflage fatigue jacket remained in place, fully buttoned.

To Fitzduane,
the sight of the three-dimensional models was somehow much more evocative than
the satellite imagery.
 
There, in
miniature, were the places where they had fought over so intensely only days
earlier.
 
They had wreaked havoc on their
raid and had departed, never expecting to see the Devil's Footprint again.
 
Now it was back as if to haunt them.

This time,
Fitzduane vowed, we're going to finish the job.
 
Given the package the air force were putting together combined with the
ferocity of an airborne assault, it seemed a reasonable proposition in the
abstract.
 
When the details were
evaluated, it was not so easy.

"The 82
^nd
Airborne Division regards taking down defended airfields as something of a
house specialty," said Gannon.
 
"We have the skills to do the job, and it's something we are
trained and equipped to do.
 
But the
Devil's Footprint complex poses particular problems.
 
Madoa airfield and the twin valleys of the
Devil's Footprint are eight kilometers apart, and both are heavily defended
locations.
 
The core difficulty is the
supergun.
 
Intelligence reports obtained
from Colonel Fitzduane's prisoner, the man Rheiman, suggest that the weapon is
primed and ready to fire.

"No
matter how sudden our assault, how can we be sure that the supergun won't be
fired before we break through?
 
Would not
a special-forces raid on the supergun itself be a more effective approach — to
be followed by the 82
^nd
when the weapon is fully secured?
 
Does it even matter if the gun is fired?
 
What damage can a projectile from such a
weapon do?
 
Gentlemen, I need
answers."

Fitzduane was
struck once again about the paradox of intelligence.
 
Operatives were so obsessed with secrecy and
classifying information as it flowed in that surprisingly often the very people
who could make best use of the intelligence were never informed.
 
General
Gannon doesn't know
!
he
thought.
 
This is going to be like Son
Tay all over again unless we watch it.

"General,"
he said, "the situation has changed.
 
We had the advantage of surprise when going in.
 
Now the Devil's Footprint has been
reinforced.
 
There is no way you can
guarantee getting in before the supergun is fired.
 
And I don't care who you use.
 
Delta, the SAS, whoever.
 
All it takes to fire that weapon is the push
of a button.
 
One finger, one split
second, and the will to do the job."

Gannon nodded
slowly.

"But the
point is," said Fitzduane, "that firing the supergun should not
matter.
 
In fact, that's what we want them
to do."

Gannon spoke
quietly to an aide and a file was passed to him.
 
The General read at the place indicated and
then looked up at Fitzduane.
 
"My
information, Colonel Fitzduane, is that the weapon is targeted on the White
House," he said, "and indeed could reach anywhere in this
country."
 
He smiled slightly.
 
"Leaving out the matter of the average
American voter's political persuasion, how could a strike on the very essence
of this country's system of government
not
be significant?"

"The
supergun has been sabotaged," said Fitzduane.

"It won't
work?" said Gannon.

"It'll
work," said Fitzduane, "but not quite as intended."

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Gannon
listened to Fitzduane and Jaeger for a further ten minutes, saying little.
 
He had been through engineering school at the
Virginia Military Institute more years ago than he cared to think about, so the
science involved was relatively familiar.
 
In essence, it all hung on the bravery of a man named Patricio Nicanor.
 
He had provided the key when he had smuggled
out a gas controller.
 
The man had paid a
high price for his courage.

"How do
you know they won't find what you have done?" he asked.
 
"Or maybe swap out the controller as
part of routine maintenance?"

"We
placed delayed charges around the breech of the weapon," said Fitzduane,
"to give the impression that this was our main effort.
 
So they would have no reason to suspect the
controller.
 
Nonetheless, we also
penetrated their stores and swapped out the spares."

"But no
guarantees?" said Gannon.

Fitzduane
shook his head.
 
"If we'd known
about the supergun's missiles, we might have done things differently," he
said.

"Dr.
Jaeger," said Gannon.

"According
to this man Rheiman," said Jaeger, "Governor Quintana went on a
shopping trip in
Eastern Europe
.
 
The supergun gave him a delivery system.
 
Next he wanted something to shoot.
 
He was looking for nuclear capability.
 
He settled for an item called Xyclax Gamma
18.
 
It's a binary nerve agent.
 
The two components are relatively harmless in
themselves
, but once mixed, a single drop — smaller
than that from a perfume atomizer — is fatal.

"The
really unpleasant thing about the stuff is that it is not a military
weapon.
 
It doesn't kill instantly or
within a few hours.
 
It can take several
days to kill you, and meanwhile you're in more agony than you can imagine.
 
Every aspect of your body malfunctions.
 
You bleed spontaneously from every
orifice.
 
Your lungs fill with pus.
 
Your joints and nerves feel like they're
being held in flames.
 
It's a nightmare
way to die, but it's not a military weapon because you can remain combat
effective for several hours after you're hit with it.