The Devil's Footprint (76 page)
Read The Devil's Footprint Online
Authors: Victor O'Reilly
It all made a
great deal of organizational sense, unless you were a lowly trooper eating dirt
as your buddies died around you and you were helpless to respond.
Scout Platoon
were certainly
to
helpless.
Oshima, it was considered, as they had sat
sweating in the confines of the SCIF, was worth some very special attention.
Fitzduane did
not want Oshima.
It had all gone way
past that point.
She had spilled far too
much blood.
He did not want a prisoner.
He was going to kill her.
When this was over, one or the other of them
was going to be dead.
Dead
beyond any doubt.
He wanted her
head.
Literally.
*
*
*
*
*
"Trooper!
Where
the fuck is your rifle?" said Divisional Command Sergeant Major Webster to
a Kevlared figure unfortunate enough to cross his path.
"I'm the
padre, Sergeant Major," said the figure.
"They don't trust me with one."
He was carrying a small bag.
"A little
early for spiritual guidance, sir," said Webster.
"But the thing is
,
can you drive a bulldozer?"
"No
problem," said the padre.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Clear
the crap off the runway, Padre," said Webster, "but watch the fucking
mines.
We don't have many
bulldozers."
"Hooah,"
said the padre.
It was nice to know
where you stood in the pecking order.
He hopped up
on the combat bulldozer.
The unit spat
black smoke and rumbled into action.
There were flashes in front of him as combat engineers started to blow
the mines.
The runway stretched out
ahead of him.
What did you need to put
down a C130?
Two thousand to three
thousand feet, he recalled.
"ALL THE
WAY, PADRE!" shouted Webster, pointing down the runway.
The padre
grinned and gunned the heavy machine forward.
The Lord hadn't been a paratrooper, but in his opinion, he should have
been.
The steering
wheel felt sticky and the instruments were splashed with something.
His seat was wet, and the dampness was
soaking into his fatigues.
The padre
suddenly realized that he was looking at and sitting in his predecessor's blood.
*
*
*
*
*
Carranza knew
they could not stay in the command bunker if they were going to do any good.
He was getting
reports in by landline from all over the airfield.
Paratroops had landed in strength, but so far
they appeared lightly armed.
Further,
the bombing had eased off.
By now most
of the aircraft would be out of ordnance and fuel.
That was the weakness of fast movers for
close-air support.
They had almost no
loiter time.
Now, before
the enemy troops got organized, was the time to act.
For the next twenty minutes or so there was a
strike opportunity ready to be used.
Now
was the time to use the armored reserve.
Forty T53
tanks together with supporting
infantry
in
armored personnel carriers were
ready in the underground cavern hollowed out under the main hangar, the control
tower, and the surrounding marshaling area.
So far, by
some miracle, neither the hangar nor the control tower had been hit.
Probably the hangar was considered of no
military significance since the runway was blocked, and as for the control
tower, his one thought was that the Americans were keeping it intact because
they would want to make use of it after they had secured the airfield.
Whatever the
reasons, it did not matter.
All that
counted was that the reserve was intact and — properly deployed — it could win
the day.
Paratroops had
a mystique, but they were not supermen.
In essence, once you stripped away the maroon berets and parachute wings
and jump boots, they were nothing more than underequipped infantry.
Look at what had happened at
airpower.
Armor had destroyed them.
Look at what
had happened at Dien Bien Phu in
The French had been arrogant and had counted
on their artillery and airpower to save them.
But in the end the underdog had triumphed and the surviving French were
marched into captivity.
Carranza was a
keen student of military history, but his memory was selective and the memories
that supported his thesis came from a different time.
But he was
correct on one point.
The Airborne
were particularly vulnerable after they landed and before their heavy firepower
was fully unpacked and into action.
But
vulnerable did not mean helpless.
And
some heavy units were not just fast at getting into action.
They were
very
fast.
He was
entirely wrong in his assessment of the air.
He knew nothing at all about the Kiowa Warriors.
"Major
Carranza," said Oshima.
"Commander?"
said Carranza.
"I would
like you to lead the counterattack," said Oshima.
"Personally?"
said Carranza.
"They
need your leadership," said Oshima.
You're sentencing me to die
, thought
Carranza.
We may well triumph, but I will be killed
.
It was less a feeling than a certainty.
It was
odd.
He did not feel anything except
a certain
impatience.
Oshima watched
Carranza leave the command bunker.
Twenty feet up, his armored reaction force sat waiting.
Facing them was a ramp leading to a
hydraulically controlled bombproof door similar to those installed on missile
silos.
The armored
door opened up directly into the hangar.
For maximum shock power, the armored force could assemble a dozen tanks
or more before attacking.
Individually,
tanks could be picked off one by one, but en masse they were an armored fist
that few soldiers could withstand.
A rifle was
useless against a tank.
If you stood
your ground, you were crushed.
AT4s and
LAWS could destroy armor, but these were close-range weapons whose backblasts gave
away their firing positions when used.
A
wedge of tanks advancing with guns blazing away was every infantryman's
nightmare.
*
*
*
*
*
General Mike
Gannon watched radio aerials sprout.
The
news of Dave Palmer's death had just come in from the air force, and he was
momentarily stunned.
Divisional HQ
occupied a pair of two-thousand-pound-bomb craters.
The area was already covered over with
camouflage netting and sweating paratroopers were further reinforcing the
position with sandbagged top cover.
It
was not so much that
generals
deserved special
protection, but more the basic fact that the radios had to be kept safe.
Without radio
communications, the 82
nd
would be shorn of most of its effective
striking power.
Air, artillery,
antitank,
his own
armor, and his maneuver battalions
all needed to be coordinated.
The Kiowa
Warriors and the Spectre gunships were his windows into the evolving
battle.
Certainly all concerned knew
their individual roles, but in an airborne operation things changed at speed.
First Brigade
were
netted in and progressing well.
Second Brigade had called for artillery
support.
They were up against a network
of bunkers defended by minefields.
The
air force had made two runs but then had run out of ordnance.
The Spectre gunships were otherwise
engaged.
The A10s were around, but for
some technical reason they could not be contacted.
Under heavy
fire, troopers were clearing paths through the minefields by advancing on their
stomachs and poking with fiberglass rods.
God knows how they had the guts to do it.
It was not like they could take their time.
During an airborne assault this intricate and
highly dangerous job was performed at speed.
It had to be done that way.
You
had to get through.
Failure was not an
option.
The strike
momentum had to be kept up.
The artillery
was still not in action.
One battery had
landed in a minefield, and the gunners rushing to unpack their pieces had taken
casualties as they moved in.
Another
battery had been hit by a mortar strike.
Gannon missed
Palmer.
Dave was the best executive
officer he had ever had, and combined
they
made a
near-perfect team.
Gannon was a fighting
general at his absolute best when leading men.
Palmer was the imperturbable organization man who kept the structure
together and the information flowing.
The thought that he'd just been blown out of the sky and was now...
gone, was sickening.
Gone!
What more could you say?
You were supposed to be safe at 20,000 feet
up, but that was an illusion.
Nowhere
was safe during an airborne assault.
There was a
boom as a 105mm howitzer went off and then another.
The camouflage netting fluttered as the shock
waves spread.
The noise
jolted Gannon back into action.
Despite
all the shit that had been thrown at them, the gunners were back on the firing
line.
He looked at his watch.
They had been on the ground only twenty-two
minutes.
The opposition was heavier than
he had expected.
The air force had worked
right through the targeting board, but the terrorists were dug more effectively
than
he been
believed.
And the intelligence on mines had been inadequate.
You could
prepare as much as you liked, but when it came right down to it every battle
had to be
fought
.
There was no easy way.
Gannon
suddenly thought of the supergun.
If
matter what the 82
nd
accomplished, a whole lot of his young men were
going to die.
The operations
board was coming up with the division's assets.
The Kiowa Warriors, electronic countermeasures, artillery, mortars,
his
TWO missiles mounted on Humvees, the
All were now unpacked and operational.
Twenty-seven
minutes in.
Not good enough.
They could always do better.
But not bad.
Gannon studied
the big operations map.
The wild card
mission was the one commanded by Fitzduane.
He was heading across to the hangar to link up with a Delta team, and
together they were going to try and flush Oshima out of her bunker.
In Gannon's
professional opinion, it was a fool's mission, since penetrating a series of
armored doors to a location sixty feet underground was tantamount to suicide.
Nevertheless,
the game in this case was certainly worth the candle.
Gannon had studied Oshima's file and had
walked through the bloodstained wreckage in
Oshima was the nearest thing to pure evil that so far in his life he had
ever encountered.
Fitzduane, Al Lonsdale, that
They were good people and did not deserve to
die.
But then, neither
had Dave Palmer.
"General?"
said Carlson, who was standing in as exec.
"We've got a report from the Delta observer team on the hangar
roof.
Armor, sir, and
lots of it.
Twenty
T53s,
and they're still coming out of the ground like
dragon's teeth."
"Colonel
Fitzduane?" said Gannon.
"Raising
him now, sir," said Carlson.
"But he'll know soon enough.
They're heading right for him."