Cochrane turned the .50 GECAL on the tank and hosed for a weakness away from the glacis at the front. Individually, the armor-piercing rounds would not penetrate a tank's frontal armor, but at sixty rounds a second against the less protected areas, hit after hit pounded its way through.
His periscopes blinded, and the tank's commander — fighting from his open cupola to try to see what was going on — was obliterated. Shortly after, there was penetration under the turret ring by explosive-filled multipurpose .50 rounds and the stored shells blew up.
It was time, in Fitzduane's opinion, to get the fuck out. Belting across this brutal terrain in a Guntrack with a repressed Formula One racing driver like Steve Kent at the wheel was dangerous enough in itself without hostiles shooting at you.
"Shadow One, this is Shadow Four," said the Brick. "Mission successful. We are loaded up and ready to come out."
"Roger that," said Fitzduane. "Shadow Two — where the fuck are you?" The plan was that Lonsdale's unit, Shadow Two, having infiltrated through the wire on the rim, would hold the blockhouse until the Brick had done his thing in the valley below. Then both would leave together.
There was an access road from the blockhouse on high to the supergun valley. They would then cross the perimeter road with the other three Guntracks, who had already made the trip, providing cover.
The plan had not included an armored column approaching from the south and a major firefight in progress. Still, life was rarely perfect, and as of now, the column was stalled and in decidedly bad shape, though it still had fangs.
Shadow Two was barreling down the access road to the valley floor with Shanley at the wheel when Fitzduane's check call came in. In Al Lonsdale's view they had stayed perhaps a minute or two too long on rim, but the domination of the battlefield they had enjoyed from that position linked to all that ammunition had been hard to resist.
"Shadow Two to Shadow One," said Lonsdale over the open net. "We're sixty seconds behind Shadow Four. We'll make the break together."
"Roger that," said Fitzduane.
"Affirmative," said the Brick from Shadow Four. "We'll break in about forty-five seconds."
"Make smoke! Make smoke!" said Fitzduane.
All three Guntracks beyond the perimeter road and already under cover now fired their smoke dischargers, and within seconds a thick blanket of black smoke blocked the view of the supergun valley entrance from the column.
The smoke contained particulates that obscured infrared-vision equipment as well as normal vision, but this was overkill since none of the T55 tanks or armored personnel carriers was so equipped. However, the survivors of the mechanized column, already shattered by the intensity of the unexpected assault, panicked when the thick black smoke rolled over them.
The high-tech particulates made the smoke different from normal and tended to make the eyes itch, although it was otherwise harmless. There were immediate cries of "NERVE GAS! CHEMICAL WEAPONS!" and any semblance of discipline that remained with the unit vanished. To a man, they turned and fled.
It looked as if Shadow Two and Shadow Four would have a clear run across the perimeter road into the cover beyond, and then a helicopter gunship loomed out of the darkness in a reconnaissance pass before vanishing again.
"Rat shit!" said Kent, and moved their position fifty meters.
"If all they're going to do is look at us, I won't complain," said Fitzduane.
He put out an air threat warning on the net, but as he spoke into the boom microphone his thoughts were of Calvin. He reached for a Stinger.
The damn thing did not feel right.
The missile was full of holes. Well, better it than him.
But there was still the matter of the fucking helicopter. Green tracer began to wink down at them, and if memory served it also carried rockets and bombs.
Calvin, my son, where are you?
* * * * *
Gunfire damage to the SkyEye was a predictable hazard, so the microlight was equipped with a spares kit.
The damaged struts were splinted together with Kevlar tape, and within five minutes Calvin was airborne again. The repair would hold, he thought, provided he could avoid violent maneuvers, but anyway it was the best he could do.
He climbed to 2,000 feet and headed back to the Devil's Footprint and Team Rapier. Fitzduane had stipulated a maximum twenty-minute action before exfiltration, and at full speed Calvin would arrive to provide top cover just as they were withdrawing.
His route took him to one side of the air base, but he was high enough to keep out of harm's way and attracted no fire. He tried the FLIR to see if he could get some reading on damage to the helicopters, but although the magnification was more than adequate, all he could see from this angle was the sandbag revetments and flames from half a dozen fires. He had done considerable damage, he was sure, but the scale was hard to estimate.
Suddenly, he noticed a small helicopter take off. He throttled back and watched it circle as if waiting for something. Thirty seconds later, a much larger helicopter could be seen. The first helicopter had not disturbed him unduly, since it was a militarized version of a civilian Bell and carried, as far as he could see, no heavy weapons. However, the sight of the second helicopter made his heart sink.
It was a Russian-built Mil Mi-4 Hound fitted with a DShK 12.7mm heavy machine gun in the gondola, four sets of rocket pods, and four five-hundred-kilo bombs. Russian helicopters, like their ships, always seemed to carry a horrendous amount of firepower. Creature comfort was always a secondary issue.
The two helicopters formed up and headed for the Devil's Footprint.
Calvin followed, furious at himself for not having risked a second pass and maybe then having destroyed all the helicopters. Steadily, the two enemy machines pulled away from him. They were a good thirty miles an hour faster and would reach the camp a couple of minutes before he could.
He spoke into his radio as he came within range to warn Fitzduane, but there was no response. The radio was dead.
He looked at his remaining stock of weaponry. He still had four RAW projectiles and three hundred-round Ultimax magazines left. He had never heard of a microlight attacking a heavily armed helicopter gunship, but right now he had no better ideas.
He flew on, alone and ill-equipped for the task, but determined. The fear he had felt earlier had completely vanished.
He kept the two enemy helicopters in sight with the FLIR, and ahead of them he could see the smoke, flames, muzzle flashes, and tracer that marked Team Rapier's bloody little war.
* * * * *
As her helicopter powered toward the Yaibo base in the Devil's Footprint, Reiko Oshima finished speaking to the air base and then tried to make some sense of what was going on.
The base commander reported that one other helicopter gunship could be airborne shortly but the remaining two had been totally destroyed, as had four out of the six MiGs. He had been near apoplectic with rage. No one had expected a raid this far from the Tecuno border. They were supposed to be safe.
He blamed it on the Mexican armed forces. Oshima was not so sure. The commander had reported that the damaged helicopters and jets had been riddled by some new type of weapon. Several of the aircraft had looked intact until you got up close; then it could be seen that they had been riddled with thousands of small holes as if fired upon by some giant shotgun.
Special weapons, to Oshima, suggested special counterterrorist forces, and her mind turned immediately to who might be involved. Given the distances to get to this isolated spot, the logistics problems were immense, and that suggested the Americans or the Israelis.
Both had many reasons to want Yaibo out of existence. Delta, in particular, harbored a grudge. She had blown up a civilian plane with 340 passengers on board three years earlier to kill an eight-man Delta team who happened to be on board returning from the Middle East.
U.S. or Israeli special forces suggested air involvement. She turned her mind to how they operated and where they might operate
from. This was a raid on the lines of Entebbe. How had that been carried out?
She pulled out a map. Air involvement imposed its own parameters. You could parachute in, but who would you get out? There had been no mention of helicopters, U.S. Special Forces' favorite toys.
Curious. The intensity of firepower suggested more than infantry. What could a special-forces aircraft carry? Tanks? No, they were far too heavy for this kind of mission. Heavily-armed jeeps? Yes, it would be something like that. She started looking at routes and possible landing fields.
Oshima had survived for as long as she had because she was very quick and very smart and she studied the ways of her enemies.
* * * * *
The pilot of the helicopter gunship had been trained by Russians who had fought in Afghanistan.
They taught him well, and they had warned him in particular about the threat of handheld SAMs, surface-to-air missiles. The arrival of the U.S.-made Stingers had not eliminated Russian use of helicopters, but it had forced them to fly high and to adopt new tactics. Unfortunately, most of these tactics required the involvement of several gunships, and he was on his own. Oshima's little Bell was not worth shit in terms of firepower and was totally unarmored.
He decided to climb to 5,000 feet and prep the area outside the two camps with his 12.7mm. The camps were obviously the target, and that gave him a clear idea of the general area where the enemy must be. Unfortunately, he had no night-vision equipment, but he was still able to orient himself by the road below and by the burning wrecks of tanks and armored cars.
In his low recce maneuver he thought he had detected some movement in the suspect area below, but he had no idea what he had seen.
He had just been able to make out some vague black shapes, and then they were gone. They were in the right place for hostiles, but it was hard to be sure. Their tracer would have helped, but they did not appear to be using it. Other gun flashes were too brief to really help adequately.
At 5,000 feet he leveled off and opened fire with the 12.7mm and salvos of rockets. The 12.7mm could be seen vanishing into the black smoke, and seconds later there were brief bursts of flame as the rockets plowed into the ground. He wasn't sure he was hitting anything, but at least he would be distracting any enemy force and taking some of the pressure off the camps.
"Get lower! Get lower!" shrieked Oshima over the radio into his ear.
He could just make out her machine. The lunatic was circling around to one side of him but several thousand feet beneath. He couldn't see it, but he knew damn well she would have the side door open and be firing into the maelstrom with her personal weapon.
She would have a Stinger up her arse if she did not watch it — which would be no loss to the world.
He finished his firing pass and circled for another. This time he would drip a couple of bombs. As he circled he noticed a small black shape to one side. It looked like some giant bird.
A vulture? Did vultures fly at night? He wished he had night-vision equipment. Flying the Mi-4 at night without it was really fucking Stone Age and no way to fight a civilized war.
The black shape came closer, and suddenly he realized what he was seeing. He'd never seen one in the flesh, but he'd read about them in aviation magazines.
So this was a microlight. Really it was little more than a cloth wing with a fuselage hanging underneath suspended by wires. He could see the pilot bundled up underneath.
The microlight looked too light and small to carry weapons, but it was not up there in the middle of the night for pleasure. It was some sort of reconnaissance vehicle.
He banked the helicopter and moved into a better firing position.
Fuck! The damn thing was not where he'd left it. He turned and lost height and scanned the sky. The microlight was small, but it should show up against the sky. Starlight had its uses.
He had just found it when a RAW projectile fired by Calvin hit the outer casing of his Shvetsov ASH-82v 1,700-horsepower engine and blew it right out of its mountings and through the fuselage where he sat.
The helicopter broke into flaming fragments and rained down on the remains of the main camp below. Four of the larger fragments were five-hundred-kilo bombs. The entire bowl of the valley erupted in a series of violent explosions, lighting up the surrounding hills with searing white flashes. A moment later the main ammunition store and refueling depot blew up.
Shadow Three and Shadow Five roared across the perimeter road and into the hills on the other side.
"Elegant," said Steve Kent, a broad grin on his face. "Fucking outrageously elegant. The regiment could not have done any better."
"High praise from SAS," said Fitzduane. He keyed his transmit button. "Shadow One to all. Who got the Mi-4? I didn't see a Stinger, so maybe Calvin's up there, but I can't see shit from here. We're in a world of smoke."
Four negatives came back.
"Head for the RV," said Fitzduane. "Shadow One will follow ASAP. Wait fifteen and head for the pickup."
"Roger that," came four times over the radio, and then they were alone.
"Steve," said Fitzduane, "take us back out of the smoke a couple of hundred meters and cut the engine. According to my vibes, Calvin's somewhere near, and we are not going to see him in this smog."
The Guntrack did not move. Fitzduane turned toward Steve. He was slumped back in his seat, the front of his combat smock drenched in blood. Most of his head was missing.
Fitzduane suddenly felt overwhelmingly tired. He put his hand on the dead man's, which still gripped the steering wheel and clasped it for a moment. Then he turned to Cochrane, who was searching the surrounding terrain with his GECAL.
"Lee," he said. "I need a hand. Steve's bought it."
Cochrane looked shocked for a moment, then jumped down and helped Fitzduane remove Steve from behind the steering wheel and into a body bag. The body was then strapped to the rear engine compartment. It was a contingency they did not like to dwell upon, but they had come prepared for it and the exercise had been rehearsed. No bodies were to be left behind. The enemy were not to be given even that much satisfaction.
Fitzduane slid into Steve's seat. It was still slippery with blood.
He drove out of the smoke to some dead ground where they could assess the situation with the FLIR and still stay concealed.
In his bones he knew Calvin was around there somewhere.
It was unthinkable to leave him behind — but there were only minutes to look for him.
* * * * *
A very shaken Reiko Oshima circled the main camp.
It was a scene out of hell lit by dozens of fires, large and small. Destroyed tanks and armored vehicles still poured black smoke, and some were still actively burning. There were sudden flashes and explosions as ammunition was ignited by the extreme heat. Green tracer fired spontaneously.
The neat lines of tents and wooden huts of the mercenary guard battalion had completely vanished, and everywhere she looked there were bodies. She tried to count them, but there were hundreds. Most were still. A few moved in a vain attempt to attract assistance.
She ordered the pilot to circle the observation post on the rim. As they approached there was an enormous explosion and the small Alouette helicopter was caught in the blast and thrown up and to one side. For a few long seconds she thought they were going to crash, and then the pilot regained control.
He looked at her briefly, mutely pleading. Sweat beaded his forehead and he looked quite terrified. She could see that he wanted to ask permission to return to the airfield, but he was even more terrified of her. She grunted. It was just as well. No weak man was going to break when Oshima was in command.
She was beginning to get a rough idea of what had happened. Given the isolated location and the large guard force, the twin valleys of the Devil's Footprint had looked exceptionally secure. However, with the benefit of hindsight it was easy to see that once the attacking force had seized the observation post and the high ground, both valleys were vulnerabl
e.
Still, who could have expected such heavy firepower to be deployed against them and for it to be deployed with such speed and ferocity? The defending force, apart from substantial manpower, had heavy armor and other weapons at its disposal. It should have been able to put up some kind of resistance and to buy time until relief arrived.
No, this was not just a conventional commando raid against them by soldiers on foot. This was some new kind of warfare, faster and more deadly than anything she had either experienced or heard of before.
"Pilot, I want you to land behind the Yaibo barracks," she said, pointing.
The pilot looked at her, ashen. He tried to speak, but his mouth had gone dry. He licked his lips and tried again. "Oshima-san," he croaked, "that is insane. You can see for yourself that the camp is a death trap."
Oshima drew her 9mm Makarov pistol and placed the tip of the barrel against the pilot's scrotum.
"Listen, you fuckhead," she snarled. "If you don't do what I tell you, I'm going to shoot this decoration off. Whatever it contains, it certainly isn't balls."
The pilot started shaking. But he landed.
Amid the destruction and the carnage, the Yaibo barracks was still miraculously intact. Oshima felt a surge of pride as she approached. Though the perimeter guards had been vanquished, the force she had trained was made of tougher stuff. There might be casualties, but most would have survived, she was sure of it. Two minutes after she entered the building, over the background sounds of conflagration and the moaning of the wounded and the sharp crack of exploding ammunition, the pilot heard the most terrible bloodcurdling scream. It was piercingly loud and it rose to a crescendo before it fell, and then this dreadful cadence was repeated again and again.
It was the most awful sound he had ever heard in his life.
Five minutes later, Oshima staggered out the front door and then collapsed. The pilot went to help her, and as he lifted her to her feet he saw with horror that her clothing was completely saturated in blood.
Fitzduane 03 - Devil's Footprint, The Page 33
