No matter how you looked at it, it was not a visit from the tooth fairy.
* * * * *
The Barracks, The Devil's Footprint,
Tecuno, Mexico
Rheiman made sure the small window was covered and then lit the six candles he had brought. He liked to look at her by candlelight, and he had made the occasions something of a ritual.
It was his eighth visit, she thought. Her mental makeup, she was discovering, was tougher than she would ever have believed.
Rheiman had undressed her after his last visit, and as her soiled clothing was removed she had expected the inevitable to follow. There was not much she could do to resist. A chained victim was every rapist's dream. But he had not raped her. Instead, he washed her and tended to her cuts and bruises and gave her water and extra food and vitamin pills and antibiotics. He was saving her life.
The Voice and the other terrorists thought he was screwing her every time he visited, but all he actually wanted to do was undress her and look at her by candlelight and talk.
And his talk was not sexual. He talked of his creation and the destruction it would wreak and the fame it would bring. He talked of the missile it would carry and the lethal nerve agent it would carry. He digressed into technicalities and explained at length why hydrogen was a superior propellant to anything Bull had ever thought up.
It came to Kathleen with some force that her plight was of little significance in the scheme of things. The carnage that Rheiman's warped mind threatened to let loose must be stopped.
He talked on, and Kathleen encouraged him. He held her hand.
* * * * *
Chifune prepared to enter Kathleen's door.
Freeman turned the handle and flung it open. There seemed to be candles everywhere, and she could see a naked figure chained to the wall.
"FRIENDS, KATHLEEN!" she shouted.
Kathleen! It did not look like her at first. The contrast between the beautiful full-bodied woman she had met in Ireland and this abused figure was truly shocking.
Bile rose in her throat.
She took in another figure, a European in desert khakis, and was within a tenth of a second of shooting him when Kathleen screamed.
"NO! NO! DON'T KILL HIM. WE NEED HIM."
Chifune grunted, and smashed Rheiman against the wall.
She spun him around and tied his wrists with plasticuffs. She had a great desire to put a burst through his head, but she heard Kathleen's plea, and if she, who had been through all this, wanted the bastard kept alive there had to be a good reason.
There had better be, or she would kill him where he stood.
Freeman removed the hostage's blindfold, then took the bolt cutters from a belt pouch and cut through the chains. Kathleen! It was definitely her. She was crying and gesturing toward the man in khaki. "You mustn't kill him. We need him. He knows."
Freeman wrapped her clothes around her and then a bulletproof vest. "Hugo is outside," he said. "We're taking you home." He indicated Rheiman. "What about this fuck? Friend or enemy?"
Kathleen looked at him, her hands rubbing her eyes. "He's one of them," she said, "but we must take him. He knows too much."
"Roger that," said Freeman. He picked her up and slung her over his shoulder. He was used to exercising with a hundred-and-fifty-pound pack. She felt disturbingly light.
"Shadow One," said Chifune. "Yaibo barracks clear and we have Kathleen. She's okay. We have a prisoner. Leaving now."
"Roger that, Shadow Two," said Fitzduane. He felt light-headed with relief at the news, but fought to keep his mind focused. "Move it fucking fast. We have visitors coming up the perimeter road from the southern. ETA less than five minutes."
A prisoner? There were to be no prisoners. Chifune knew that as well as anyone, so there had to be a reason.
"Shadow Four," said the Brick. He was inside the supergun bunker working on the firing mechanism, aided by Hayden, while Sergeant Oga kept watch outside. The shattered bodies of the Yaibo guards lay where they had fallen. The work was demanding. "We are in, but we need a minimum seven to ten minutes more — I repeat, seven to ten."
Fitzduane made a quick assessment.
He currently had four teams inside the camps. Two had neutralized the Yaibo barracks and looked like they would get out in time, but the remaining two units would be cut off when the approaching column arrived.
It would occupy the road end to end, from the main camp to way beyond the supergun valley. It was dark, and he considered having them infiltrate the column, but that would mean leaving the Guntracks, and they still had to make the pickup point forty kilometers away. The logic was simple and the outcome would be bloody, but there was very little choice.
The lights flickered as the generator in the main camp coughed and then died again. Suddenly it was dark. Chifune and the five other members of her assault group ran for the main gates and then across the perimeter road to their waiting Guntracks.
"I'm going to thin out the approaching column," said Fitzduane. "Heavy shit for the next ten minutes and then we all bug out for the emergency RV. Acknowledge."
The four teams acknowledged in numerical order.
"Go! Go! Go!" said Fitzduane. "Calvin, where the fuck are you?"
There was no reply.
Fitzduane's Shadow One shot forward toward the approaching column. The Guntrack was maneuvering through the low hills beside the perimeter road, travelling a roughly parallel route.
In a little over a minute they would be side by side, separated by little more than a hundred meters but traveling in opposite directions. It was, Fitzduane reflected briefly as he roared toward the T55 tank that headed the column, almost a modern version of medieval jousting, except that only one side knew he had an enemy to deal with. The Guntracks had not been detected.
This was not a joust. It was war. It was the business of killing. Fair play did not come into it.
Fitzduane spoke into his microphone on the internal net, and Steve Kent slewed to a halt and crept into a firing position shielded by a rocky outcrop.
Lee Cochrane readied the .50 GECAL heavy machine gun.
Fitzduane brought his RAW up to the point of aim.
A T55 tank looked disconcertingly formidable to rifle-equipped infantry and was strongly armored at the front, but it was vulnerable from the side and at the rear engine compartment. And Shadow One would be firing down, which would help. Tanks were thinly armored at the top. It was a matter of keeping the weight down. Maximum armor everywhere had the same effect as on a knight of old. The end result was unwieldy and virtually too heavy to move.
The T55 ground tank passed them, treads squealing in protest. This was a tank that had been six months on routine patrols and needed tender loving care from the maintenance shop. It did not get it. A split second after the RAW smashed into its engine compartment it ignited, flames jetting into the darkness.
Fitzduane fitted another RAW and fired at the next vehicle, an armored personnel carrier. The vehicle exploded.
Troop-laden trucks following the two lead vehicles braked to avoid crashing into the burning wrecks, and several crashed into each other. Soldiers poured out of the backs of the trucks, and it was into this chaos that the rotating-barreled .50 GECAL began to fire.
Seconds afterward, Shadow Four leapfrogged Fitzduane and headed down to the end of the column, guns blazing and extending the slaughter. Shortly afterward, the Brick aimed his Dilger's Baby at the vehicle bringing up the rear.
There was an earsplitting crack and a tongue of flame, and the uranium-depleted projectile smashed through the side of the tank and ignited the ammunition inside. The whole tank blew and the turret sailed into the air and turned, landing upside down.
"Reverse! Move fifty," said Fitzduane, and Steve Kent shot Shadow One backward and moved to a fresh firing position fifty meters away.
And so it continued. Fire and movement. Shoot and maneuver. And using night-vision equipment under cover of darkness so that the Guntracks were almost never
seen.
Take every advantage.
The engagement was brutal, and it took little time before most of the vehicles in the convoy were ablaze. Cochrane raked the carnage one more time and the two vehicles sped away to the rendezvous point. The survivors were convinced they had been hit by at least a battalion-size force.
* * * * *
Al Lonsdale's team high in the blockhouse and commanding both valleys and the perimeter road below entered the fray.
When the order came to shoot up the main camp, he sent Dana down to the Guntrack while he and Shanley stayed on the blockhouse roof to use the weapons available. Team Rapier had massive firepower, but ammunition was limited and it made sense to use what the other side was kind enough to provide. They appeared to have been generous. Apart from the 12.7mm heavy machine gun, there was an 82mm mortar and substantial stocks of ammunition.
Dana maneuvered the Guntrack into firing position and then went back to man the 40mm grenade launcher. Below them they could see sudden frantic action as the tented lines heard the sound of the perimeter guard column being shot up. A klaxon sounded. Tank crew ran toward their vehicles. Weapons teams sped toward mortar pits. Other troops spilled out of their tents while officers shouted and tried to impose some order.
Al Lonsdale's first mortar bomb exploded in the middle of the tented lines at almost the same time as Dana and Shanley opened fire.
Armored personnel carriers ignited and their crews ran from them into the maelstrom as 40mm grenades cut through their thin armor. Dana was firing a cocktail of armor-piercing, high explosive, and fléchettes in three-round bursts at a cyclical rate of 350 rounds a minute.
In the confined space of the camp, the destruction was appalling. Each single high-explosive grenade had a kill radius of five meters. It was intensified by the green tracer from Shanley's heavy machine gun.
Further firepower came from Guntracks firing from the low hills opposite the main entrance outside the camp. RAW projectiles were followed by streams of armor-piercing Ultimax fire and the earsplitting crack of Dilger's Baby.
The tank guarding the main entrance gate burst into flame. Another T55 had its track blown off and spun slow round in circles until a depleted uranium shell blew its turret off. The colonel commanding the armored battalion tried to make a run for his armored command vehicle but was eviscerated by a Dilger round as he was climbing in. The APC ignited and commander and vehicle were burned together.
Laser sights, night-vision equipment, and high-magnification optics not only had vastly increased the first hit probability of Team Rapier's weapons but also, at such close ranges, made the business of killing disturbingly personal.
Through the viewfinders of the weapons sights the enemy looked close enough to touch, and the expressions of individual soldiers could be seen as high-velocity metal and explosives tore through them and blew them apart.
In the intensity of the action, the sights of such horrors made no impression on the outnumbered assault force. It was a matter of brute survival, and such images were repressed as fast as they were seen.
The killing continued with savage precision.
21
Madoa Air Base,
Tecuno, Mexico
Reiko Oshima lay on her back, her knees drawn up and spread apart and her hands grasping the metal bed-head of the military-issue bed.
Her forehead was beaded with sweat and her loins were sticky with sexual fluids. General Luis Barragan's principal attraction, as far as she was concerned, was a combination of his endurance and imagination, and he had already been working on her for several hours. A few moments ago, just as she had been about to come yet again, he had withdrawn from her and now stood gazing out of the window at the night sky. There was a flash of flame as he lit a cigarette, and as he turned to look at her she could see that his organ was still hard and erect.
She wanted to hit him, to inflict pain, but she was helpless, her wrists bound to the metal frame. He smiled at her, a flash of white teeth, and then he came nearer, the red tip of the cigarette glowing in the darkened room. Her eyes fixed on the red tip and she followed it as it approached her lower body.
She clenched her teeth in anticipation of the sharp pain and the sudden jolting burst of intense sexual pleasure that would follow, and then Luis would enter her again and pound in and out of her and finish what he had started. And then it would commence again, but always with a subtle variation. Or perhaps he would be the victim next time around. That was a pleasing prospect.
There was a flash in the sky and a thunderous explosion, and the window shattered and she could hear bursts of machine-gun fire. She pulled in reflex at her bonds, but it was useless.
"Cut me loose, you fool," she shouted at Barragan as she switched her gaze from the window to her lover.
He seemed frozen with shock. The cigarette fell from his hand and he took a couple of uncertain steps toward her and then collapsed on her body, crimson pouring from his severed jugular, the shard of glass still protruding.
She lay there screaming in rage and frustration and disgust as Barragan's life-blood gushed over her and soaked into the bed. Then she noticed that the shard of glass was near her right wrist and she moved the leather thong against it.
It took several minutes, but gradually she worked herself free.
Outside on the airfield, every single weapons emplacement seemed to be in action, but to what purpose it was far from clear. Tracer crisscrossed the sky in wild abandon, and on the ground explosion followed explosion.
She threw on some clothes over her blood-soaked body, grabbed her AK-47, and ran outside to see if she could make sense of what was going on. They were under attack obviously, but whether from the air or from the ground she could not tell.
The scene that greeted her was total chaos. She ran toward her helicopter. Around her, an ammunition dump was exploding and the flames from a fuel bowser licked at the sky, but her helicopter seemed untouched. Better still, her pilot was already at the controls.
She jumped in, and seconds later they were airborne.
* * * * *
Above Madoa Air Base,
Tecuno, Mexico
Calvin banked the microlight steeply to the left as a stream of green tracer arced toward him.
There was bedlam below. None of the fire seemed to be aimed, but so much lead was being thrown up there was a reasonable chance he would be hit by accident unless he got out fast. He dived to fifty feet and accelerated to maximum speed.
A mortar pit below started to fire as he flashed over. In their haste they had misjudged the range, and the heavy teardrop-shaped bombs instead of landing outside the airfield among the imagined attackers were landing inside it among the defending troops as they crouched in their trenches and blazed away into the darkness.
The little aircraft lurched as he crossed the perimeter, and he had to lean to the right to keep his balance. The miniature machine was hit, fuck it, but he did not take the time to check the damage. Instead he concentrated on the decidedly hairy business of flying down a long twisting wadi at ground-hugging height. The dry riverbed was pointing northwest, so it was in the wrong direction, but it took him away from the action and another chance encounter with an unfriendly projectile.
He slowed down, activated the sound suppressor, and climbed.
A quick glance showed him that one of his supporting struts had been severed.
Unless he made some emergency repairs fairly soon, the wing might go on flying, but the fuselage that contained him would part company from the airfoil and head straight for the ground. This was not a prospect that attracted him. To maximize his weapons load under the tight weight constraint, he had opted not to wear a parachute.
He put in an airborne radio call to Fitzduane, but either he was out of range or things had gone badly wrong for the ground-based members of Team Rapier. Suddenly he felt very alone, and as the adrenaline rush wore off, the reaction hit and he felt tendrils of fear.
He decided t
hat he just did not have time to feel afraid.
He activated the FLIR and looked for a reasonably friendly patch of ground to land on. The bottom of the wadi was a mass of loose boulders and larger rocks, so he focused on the perimeter.
Three minutes later, he was on the ground.
In the distance he could see that the fireworks display at the airfield was still continuing and he wondered how much damage he had done. He had certainly gotten their attention, but the key issue was the extent to which the helicopters and the MiGs had been damaged.
He started to get out of his tiny cockpit to repair the damaged struts, and it was only then that he realized that he had been hit.
The whole front of his duvet jacket had been torn away, and under it the ceramic plate body armor insert that protected his vital organs was exposed. The heavy round had hit him on the diagonal and cut through the outer layers of Kevlar as effortlessly as if they were paper, but had then been deflected by the ceramic plate.
He had damn nearly left the insert plates behind but had rethought after Fitzduane's caution.
Calvin sat down on a rock and for nearly two minutes shook like a leaf. The spasm ended when he heaved violently and threw up.
He felt weak but able to function again, and went back to work.
* * * * *
Outside The Devil's Footprint,
Tecuno, Mexico
Fitzduane tried to look at his watch, then swore as Steve threw the Guntrack into reverse and shot backward for thirty meters.
A tank shell impacted in the hill just behind the spot they had just vacated and showered them with debris.
‘Shoot and scoot,’ was the tactic, but as the battle progressed and the enemy began to learn the rules, it made sense for there to be more emphasis on ‘scoot.’ It was then that the driver's battle skills really came into play. There was not time for him to merely respond to the vehicle commander's instruction. He had to read the battleground and follow his intuition.
Fitzduane 03 - Devil's Footprint, The Page 32
