The Devil's Footprint (70 page)

Global force projection.

Force was the
key.
 
When the Airborne jumped, the time
for compromise was over.
 
It was down to
elementals.
 
You killed them before they
killed you.
 
Yo smashed into the
enemy.
 
You destroyed them.
 
You did not hesitate.
 
When attacking a heavily defended airfield —
a substantial piece of real estate — the normal takedown time was two hours.

Two hours of
focused carnage.

Ironically,
may people — even in the military — thought of the 82
^nd
as a light
division, incapable of delivering a real punch.
 
It had indeed
be
true half a century
earlier.
 
Now the destructive power of
the 82
^nd
was awesome.
 
True,
it lacked the heavy armor of a mechanized division or the stupendous firepower
of a modern MLRS-equipped artillery brigade, but that was more than compensated
for by the way it worked with airpower.
 
Air support was the 82
^nd
's heavy armor and artillery.

But even
without airpower the 82
^nd
was no longer a light division.
 
Potent 105mm howitzers and heavy mortars gave
artillery cover within fifteen minutes of the division's hitting the
ground.
 
The Stinger-equipped Avenger
missile system secured the air.
 
TOWS,
Dragons, and AT4s provided potent antiarmor and anti-bunker capability.

The removal of
the 82
^nd
's indigenous Apache helicopters had been a controversial
decision, but the Kiowas had picked up the slack with a vengeance.
 
They were small and hard to detect and easier
to airship and maintain, and though they could not carry the same payload as
the Apache, they did carry the lethal Hellfire missile system.
 
Further, by ripping out the two rear seats
and stuffing the bay helicopters with electronics, the Kiowas now had
outstanding sighting systems and night-vision capability.
 
So the switch had worked to the 82
^nd
's
advantage.
 
In fact, the controversy had
been something of a storm in a teacup.
 
On a combat mission, Apaches could always be attached to the 82
^nd
if required.

The
development in the 82
^nd
's combat effectiveness that had pleased
Gannon, an old infantryman, most was night-vision capability.
 
Traditionally, the cost of night-vision
equipment had made selective issue to squad leaders and
special
forces
the norm.
 
Now every single
trooper in the 82
^nd
had advanced third-generation goggles with him as
he went into battle.
 
Teamed up with
laser aiming devices with beams visible only to those wearing the goggles, the
effect on small-arms accuracy had exceeded expectations.
 
Everyone knew about the Air Force's smart
bombs.
 
An Airborne trooper's firepower
now approached the same level of accuracy.
 
What a trooper saw he could — and did — hit.

Lethal young
men, reflected Gannon, which was the way it should be.
 
There were not many of them to hold the line,
and the threats in today's world were legion.

The names of
operations were normally chosen at the highest levels, with a weather eye on
the public relations impact.
 
In this
case, because the elimination of the Devil's Footprint was a personal matter
for the 82
^nd
after the
Fayetteville
bombings, General Gannon had been asked to choose his own name.

Gannon was a
man who studied his craft in the belief that the core lessons of combat were
timeless.
 
He had named the mission
OPERATION CARTHAGE
.
 
The Carthaginians had invaded
Italy
and had
caused the Romans serious grief on their home territory.
 
In return, the Romans had crossed to Africa,
defeated the Carthaginians utterly, and had razed
Carthage
to the ground.

It had all
happened more than two thousand years ago, but to Gannon the parallels were
clear.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Lieutenant
Luke Brock filled six empty quart-size Coke bottles with water and hung them
from target frames.

This was not
the kind of exercise the range officer would approve of, but Brock was more
concerned with the combat effectiveness of his unit than range safety.
 
In his opinion, the general unwillingness of
U.S.
forces to
train under live fire was criminal.
 
The
do-gooder liberals who had pushed the safety-first approach through did not
seem to understand that lives lost in training accidents were more than
compensated for in combat.
 
They also
missed the simple truth that a soldier's life, by definition, could not be
risk-free.
 
This current notion of aiming
for zero-casualty combat and compromising on the mission struck Brock as being
the value system of traitorous assholes who did not give a fuck about the
United States
.
 
Where would the nation have been if
Washington
had ordered
his troops to go home in case they might get too cold!

The fact that
the 82
^nd
Airborne had to compromise on training because of the red
cockaded woodpecker produced in him something akin to a killing frenzy.
 
He thought of the damn bird every time he had
to go on a mission.
 
It seemed to evoke
the right throat-cutting mental attitude.

He lay down
between two target frames.
 
Zalinski and
Gallo were equally positioned.
 
Zalinski
was the spotter on this one, and Gallo the shooter.
 
Gallo did not really need a spotter, since he
worked out where the enemy sniper was, through some kind of Zen-based
telepathy, but even the best sniper needed a partner to back him up.
 
Accuracy was great, but God loved firepower
too.
 
Gallo had an M24.
 
Zalinski had a customized SAW with a
two-hundred-round box attached.

Brock spoke
into his radio.
 
"Counting
down."

Ten seconds
later, the first Coke bottle blew apart, spattering Brock with water.
 
The enemy sniper would continue firing and
moving every thirty seconds until all the bottles were destroyed or he was
detected by Zalinski and Gallo.
 
The
enemy was between five and seven hundred meters away in brush and wearing a
gillie suit, so spotting him was no easy task.

Gallo had his
eyes closed and was lying on his back.
 
It was a disconcerting habit for a sniper trying to track down a
hostile, but it seemed to work for him.

Brock checked
his watch.
 
Five seconds more to go.
 
Gallo normally seemed to sense the location
of his man after the third or fourth shot, but he had been getting better
recently.
 
Some brain-enhancing herb he
was taking.
 
It helped to compensate for
being with a woman, he said.
 
Sex drained
his powers and positively fucked with his concentration.
 
On the other hand, without it, he went moody.

The second
bottle exploded, this time showering Zalinski.

A split second
later, Gallo rolled over onto his stomach and fired the laser attached to his
sniper rifle.
 
Green smoke spewed up from
the brush.
 
A direct
hit.

Brock
contemplated his star sniper.
 
Gallo was
looking remarkably pleased with himself.
 
Zalinski was soaked.

"Gallo,
you tricky fuck, you could have fired earlier," said Brock.

"The
vibes weren't right," said Gallo.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

The Humvee passed the Delta compound and headed on toward Sicily Drop
Zone.
 
Delta was so classified that it
was referred to as ‘the place that doesn't officially exist,’ but its
unofficial presence bordered with chain-link fencing topped with razor wire was
substantial.
 
Aircraft coming in over
Bragg to carry out drops used Delta's distinctive red roofs to verify their
positions.
 
One covered a killing house
where CQB — close quarters battle techniques, developed initially by the SAS —
were refined into an art.

"Homesick?" said Fitzduane.

Lonsdale was driving.
 
He took his
right hand off the wheel and gave a cross between a salute and a wave as he
passed by.
 
"It's a
fraternity," he said.
 
"You
never quite leave.
 
On the other hand, I
could never quite go back.
 
I'm too old
for some of the bullshit."

Both men were wearing 82
^nd
Airborne
combat fatigues and their faces were camouflaged with green and black
cream.
 
It was the prescribed uniform
west of
Fort
Bragg
's

"They say if you can make it in Bragg," said Lonsdale,
"you can make it anywhere in the U.S. Army.
 
The men mostly love it.
 
Wives and girlfriends hate the place.
 
With one of the three brigades always on
eighteen-hour standby and EDREs being called whenever you least expect, your
domestic life does not get much of a look in.
 
There are more ways of being hurt than being killed or wounded.
 
You can end up being turned on by a pair of
watermelons."

Fitzduane smiled.
 
They'd been
looking for the Scout Platoon for the last hour.
 
They'd been to the range but found only some
empty Coke bottles and a sputtering range officer.
 
The latest word was the Lieutenant Brock and his
private army had headed off to Sicily DZ to do something with tanks.
 
If Fitzduane had heard it right, a C130 was
going to drop a couple on top of them.
 
Strange people, the Scouts.

"Cochrane called from the Hill," he said.
 
"He sounded — how shall I put
it...?"

"Jealous," said Lonsdale.
 
"What did you say?"

"I told him the President needed him, Congress needed him, and there
was more important work to do on counterterrorism in the nation's capital than
down here," said Fitzduane.

"True enough," said Lonsdale.
 
"On the other hand, he'd be a good man to have with us.
 
If memory serves, we'd both be sushi without
him."

Fitzduane was silent.
 
It would
have been nice to have gone back with the whole team, but the 82
^nd
had wanted advisers rather than an army.
 
They had pointed out that they already had an army.
 
Fitzduane as mission commander and one other
was all they would wear.
 
The team had drawn
lots for the extra place.

"Well, this one Lee will just have to miss," said Fitzduane.

The trees thinned out and then the vast open space that was Sicily DZ lay
ahead.
 
The earth was red, not unlike the
soil in Lonsdale's valley in
Arizona
.

A solitary C130 was making its approach.
 
As they watched, something substantial emerged from its rear, followed
by an item of similar size.
 
Seconds
later, three large parachutes opened, checking the rapid descent of the first
item.
 
Almost immediately, the parachutes
on the second parcel blossomed.

"Where they land Scout Platoon should be," said Fitzduane.
 
"More or less."

Lonsdale headed the Humvee toward the descending tanks.
 
There was no sign of Scout Platoon.

There was something surreal about seeing tanks floating through the
air.
 
They were strapped to thick,
corrugated pallets.
 
Packing material was
wedged into vulnerable areas like the tracks.

The tanks
seemed close enough to touch.

Lonsdale was
staring out at them too.

"For
fuck's sake, we're underneath the bloody things," yelled Fitzduane.
 
"This is ridiculous."