Now she was beginning to understand how her base, with all its armor and security, had been overcome so quickly.
A tank roared past her, tracks churning, and she fell back, terrified. The stars were fading. It would be dawn soon.
She heard the heavy throb of an armored personnel carrier and looked up. The vehicle stopped and the commander looked down.
Somehow he looked familiar. A red map light illuminated his face from below. That was ironic. The face was that of Major Khalifa Sherrif, the ‘hero’ who could not navigate. Life, she thought, was a joke; a sick joke. It was a pity she had not understood this sooner.
The Major looked away and shouted a command.
The Major's armored personnel carrier accelerated, leaving Oshima alone in the desert.
* * * * *
The evacuating Guntracks roared through the Funnel and on to the airstrip.
Behind them there was the sound and fury of the firefight, and each person's thoughts were with the rear guard as they battled.
Ten minutes later, Shadow Three disengaged on Fitzduane's instructions and joined the two other Guntracks. Less than a minute later, alerted by radio, Kilmara's C130 Combat Talon swooped in and taxied to a halt, the ramp already almost down.
Immediately, the three Guntracks drove on board and the Combat Talon, with the ramp still open, took off and headed out of Tecuno-controlled airspace at contour-following height, electronic-warfare systems fully operational. Tecuno wavebands were a mass of activity, and they could hear jet fighters being vectored into the search area. Timing was critical. They would have more than eighty minutes' exposure before the fighter threat would be over.
Kilmara hated the abrupt departure with Fitzduane and the crew of Shadow One still on the ground, but every second spent in the area increased the chance of detection and his first priority was the safety of the aircraft and crew and passengers.
It was now up to the guts and ingenuity of Fitzduane and his remaining team on the ground, the flying skills of Eagle Friend, and a quite extraordinary device known as Skyhook or the Fulton Rescue System.
And there were also the moves of the enemy to consider.
Shadow One had been located, and the noose would be tightening by the second.
* * * * *
Fitzduane felt dazed and disoriented, and he could not see and he felt rising panic.
He fought for control. Where was he? What had happened? He put his hand to his face. It was wet and sticky. Shit! He was bleeding from a gash in his forehead. He staggered to his feet and splashed some water from his belt water-bottle on his face and washed the blood from his eyes.
He could see! The relief was intense. He could feel the rush of fear receding and his self-confidence reestablishing itself.
Shadow One lay on its side about twenty yards away. One track was missing and there was a huge hole in the rear engine compartment through which diesel was leaking. They had been hit but they had been lucky. Or had they? It was then that he noticed Lee Cochrane. He was bent over Al Lonsdale, who lay motionless on the ground.
Fitzduane began to remember what had happened. They had chewed up the advancing armored column with some success thanks to Dilger's Baby, night-vision equipment, and some seriously aggressive tactics. They then had disengaged. Shadow Three had headed on to the airstrip and Shadow One had made it to the Funnel.
He recalled the Guntrack roaring down the Funnel to where it narrowed, and then suddenly everything had gone blank.
Ahead of him he saw a Combat Talon climb into the night sky and then recede into the distance.
The sight was like a physical blow, and again there was that feeling of fear.
He went over to Cochrane. "How is he?" he said, looking at Lonsdale.
"Concussed, I think," said Cochrane. "I can't find any external wound." He held up something. "Here are your NVGs. They got ripped off when you screwed up your landing, Hugo."
Fitzduane started to raise his eyebrows in surprise, but they seemed to be stuck in place. Cochrane was in his element. This was a man who had found himself.
The goggles still worked. Fitzduane started to feel generally more optimistic. Half the Tecuno army might be on their tail, but at least he could find his way around and, truth to tell, their thermal viewers and passive night vision had given them an incredible edge over the opposition, so it was nice to hang on to some of the equipment. There was still some serious work to do.
He looked down the valley. In the distance, roughly halfway down the valley, he could see vehicles burning. Cochrane saw his look and grinned.
"The hostiles chased us into the Funnel," said Cochrane, "but I had a go with the .50 Barrett after we got hit. It seems ridiculous that a rifle can take out an armored vehicle like a BMP-1, but there is the proof. An average of three rounds each at nearly a kilometer, and up they went. Thin armor, vulnerable fuel tanks, and armor-piercing incendiary make a lethal combination. Anyway, they pulled back and now seem to be regrouping. I guess they figure time is on their side. They put up some flares a few minutes ago, so they know our track is out. And where are we going on foot? There is nothing in every direction."
Fitzduane decided to ignore that last rather disconcerting remark and focus on the shooting. "Just so you know, Lee," he said. "Running a private war — just because Al and I were unconscious — is greedy."
Cochrane laughed out loud.
"Back to business," said Fitzduane. "Any contact with Eagle Friend?"
"Affirmative," said Cochrane.
He tapped the personal radio every member of the team carried for emergencies. It was low power and strictly line of sight, but it combined voice capability with a locator beam. "He's doing a run in any minute. He's contour flying to avoid SAMs, so voice contact is intermittent."
The Combat Talon was using the surrounding mountain range to shield it from SAMs — surface-to-air missiles — as it approached. The Talon had some useful offensive firepower, but its main defense lay in being extraordinarily hard to detect. Its electronic warfare black boxes made it effectively invisible to most radar. Nonetheless, line-of-sight triple-A — antiaircraft artillery — and SAMs could be a serious threat when it could be seen with the naked eye, so Talon pilots worked hard to remain invisible. In this context, a few mountains between them and hostiles were highly approved of.
Fitzduane unclipped an Ultimax from its mount and fitted a fresh hundred-round magazine. A pump-action grenade launcher went over his shoulder and more ammunition went into a rucksack. Then he joined Cochrane in carrying Al Lonsdale into a natural rock emplacement in the foothills.
It was a far-from-perfect location because there was no overhead cover, but there was nothing better immediately around and their plans depended on their moving up rather than out in the next few minutes. That meant they needed access to the sky.
Parachute flares exploded in the sky and the valley was lit up with white light. Backed up by field glasses, it was an old-fashioned solution for dealing with the visibility problem but effective nonetheless.
The wrecked Guntrack could be clearly seen. Fitzduane doubted that the Tecuno mercenaries could see them crouched down behind the rocks in camouflage with blackened faces, but common sense dictated their rough location.
There was a moaning sound and a salvo of mortar shells bracketed the wrecked vehicle, and blast after blast hurled metal splinters into the surrounding rocks. Half a dozen heavy machine guns joined in.
The parachute flares died out but the barrage continued, and Fitzduane knew it would only be a matter of time. They seemed to be up against some serious opposition, and the way the assault was being conducted suggested that the hostiles had recovered from their confusion.
He prayed that someone up high would come to their assistance very soon, or they would be up there themselves checkout out their new wings.
It was a prospect Fitzduane was willing to postpone. He decided he would try the direct approach.
"Eagle Friend," he said qui
etly and deliberately into his radio, "we have heavy incoming here, so hear me well. This is no time for subtlety. Knock off your coffee break and be kind enough to seriously fuck the bad guys. Do you copy?"
"Loud and clear, Hugo," said the Bear, and there was a roar of engines as the Combat Talon popped up and tracked the valley, its two six-barrel .50-caliber GECALs blazing.
Eight thousand rounds a minute — armor-piercing, high explosive, and tracer — into the broad end of the valley occupied by the mercenary task force.
Devastation. Slaughter. A scale of destruction it was hard to comprehend.
Explosion after explosion rent the air as armored vehicles blew up. The incoming mortar and APC rounds ceased.
Fitzduane and Cochrane peered between two rocks at the holocaust.
"Unbelievable," said Fitzduane in an awed voice.
A parachute opened above them, and seconds later a bulky package hit the ground.
Fitzduane grinned at Cochrane. "It's been easy up to now," he said.
* * * * *
Major Khalifa Sherrif might have been a truly terrible map reader, but militarily he was moderately competent.
Under fire, he normally had a reasonable idea of what to do if it was only how to keep his own valuable body out of harm's way. Nonetheless, fighting Indian peasants in Tecuno armed with only shotguns, the odd AK-47 assault rifle, and RPG-7 rocket launchers had not prepared him for this kind of combat.
Rifles that could take out armored personnel carriers at well over a kilometer and aircraft guns that could put a round in every square meter of land in a valley-wide swath were new to him — and quite terrifying.
He thought about the situation. Another column had showed up from the south and he had deployed them around the airstrip. Part of the enemy force had already left — he had seen the Combat Talon taking off in the distance — but at least the remainder were now surrounded somewhere in the narrow end of the funnel and the airstrip had been rendered unusable.
The enemy, whoever they were, but certainly commandos of some kind, were trapped. They had no way out. And by morning the forces around them would be overwhelming. Infantry and armor was converging on the Funnel from every direction.
It was going to work out. The post of military aide to Governor Quintana that he had been after would be his. The minor detail that his armored column had been shot to pieces by the enemy would be glossed over, and anyway there was a useful technique called creative accounting. No one was really going to come out here to the battlefield to take a look.
He switched to consideration of immediate tactics. Sending in armor was for the birds. The burning wrecks of T55s and armored fighting vehicles dotting the valley floor below were blunt proof of that.
No, the best tactic overall was to wait the enemy out and let the sun do its work tomorrow. There was no water in the Funnel, so it would only be a matter of time.
He considered this option. It certainly made the most sense militarily. Still, the politics of the situation also had to be factored in. Surrounding — without doing anything more — did not have a heroic ring, and soldiers were supposed to fight.
He had one platoon of hard cases he used for chasing Indians in the hills. A small group used to this kind of terrain might just do the trick where armor had failed.
He sent them in and watched them as they disappeared into the darkness. In his report, he would lead them, of course. Fortunately, in real life he had more sense and whistled up his sergeant for a cup of tea.
* * * * *
The Bear watched the loadmaster get his end of the Fulton Rescue System ready and tried to get his mind around what was about to happen.
It had been explained to him in some detail during the long flight in, but frankly it was hard to grasp.
It was not that it was complicated. It was more that it was quite loopy. It also was unnatural, decidedly only for the insane, and certainly the most terrifying way of boarding an aircraft that he had ever heard of. Bar none. In his considered opinion, it belonged only in cartoons. He could imagine Bugs Bunny having a high old time with it and Woody Woodpecker chortling with glee. But it was decidedly not for humans.
He thought about the procedure again and shuddered. It made throwing yourself out of an aircraft door with a backpack full of nylon tied together with string appear positively safe.
But if they were to get Fitzduane and his people out of terminal trouble, it was the only way.
The intercom crackled. "We're going in," said the pilot.
The GECAL crews readied their weapons.
And then the firing started.
* * * * *
Fitzduane and Cochrane put on the still-unconscious Lonsdale's suit and then scrambled into their own.
A webbing harness was built into each suit, and that in turn was attached to a line. The line looked disturbingly fragile. It looked scarcely strong enough to support one person, let alone three.
The bulkiest element of the package was a cylinder of helium. Fitzduane connected the helium as indicated and turned on the valve, and with surprising speed an airship-shaped balloon began to appear. It was bigger than he had expected and he wondered why, then realized it had the weight of five hundred feet of line to support.
He released the balloon and it ascended speedily, the line unraveling as it climbed until the umbilical was taut, trembling only slightly as the wind blew at the miniature airship up above.
"Eagle Friend," he said into his radio. "We're ready as we'll ever be — but I feel scared shitless. It'll never work."
"It had better," said Cochrane, who was surveying the approach through binoculars. "The hostiles are learning. There is a platoon-sized group working its way up, and they'll be in range in a couple of minutes."
He raised the Barrett. He was not as good as Al Lonsdale, but he was close. Conventional rifle range and the Barrett's range were two different orders of magnitude.
He aimed and fired rapidly.
The advancing unit's point man, platoon sergeant, and radio operator lay dead on the ground when he had finished, and the rest of the platoon had scurried for cover. Several were wounded by rock splinters gouged out by the massive multipurpose rounds.
There was a roar of aircraft engines and gunfire as Eagle Friend flew down the valley yet again and hosed the surviving mercenary troops.
Major Khalifa Sherrif was waiting with a SAM operator for exactly this development and held his position. Only his head was not under cover, and that seemed a reasonable risk. He wanted to see the kill. The aircraft was flying at just under 500 feet, he estimated, and was keeping surprisingly steady. The trooper would get a lock. They were going to get the aircraft.
The missile leaped from the launcher and soared toward the Combat Talon.
Bright orange fireballs drew glowing streaks in the sky as the Talon fired its antimissile flares.
The heat-seeking SAM, faced with an excess of choice, twisted and turned and plowed into the far side of the valley.
* * * * *
Fitzduane and Cochrane — Lonsdale, still unconscious, held up between them — looked at each other as the huge aircraft approached.
Two eight-foot arms attached to its nose were now extended in an open V to snare the thin line attached to the balloon. The balloon could be detected in the darkness by night-vision goggles, but there was also a strobe light flashing away at the top, shielded from the ground but in the line of sight of the pilot.
The aircraft was going to snare the thin line at something like 125 knots — 156 miles an hour — and Fitzduane did not want to think about what was going to happen next. Whatever he had been told in training, he imagined a horrendous jerk and horrible pain and his body being cut in half by the shock. And anyway, he did not like heights.
"Is this really a good idea?" he said to Cochrane.
"NO!" said Lee Cochrane, the chief of staff of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism, whose enthusiasm for Washington and all its intrigues had suddenly be
en revived. I should be on the Hill, he thought. What the hell am I doing here! This stuff is dangerous!
It was a vain thought and ventured upon somewhat late in the day. The engine roar was magnified by the confines of the valley. It was going to happen.
It was happening — and it was unbelievable!
Suddenly, it was directly over them and all they could hear was this terrible throbbing roar and then they were airborne — whipped up into the air with less shock than a parachute opening — and the ground was receding and they were climbing higher and they were through the narrow end of the Funnel and over the abandoned airstrip and they were going higher and higher as the aircraft climbed to avoid mountains ahead and the slipstream whipped at them and it was much colder and Fitzduane realized the reason for the bulky suits.
Skyhook worked.
Instinct suggested that they should have been jerked half to death or sliced into segments by the sudden pull of the line, but the reality was that initially they were pulled up rather than forward, and only slowly — relatively speaking — brought up to the speed of the roaring aircraft. Though hard to grasp by the uninitiated, it was a simple matter of geometry.
Quietly and consistently, Skyhook had worked for nearly fifty years, from the North Pole to Southeast Asia, ever since Robert Edison Fulton had invented it and tested it at his home in Connecticut.
The front of the line was secured by the retrieval mechanism in the nose of the aircraft, and the balance of the line now stretched under the fuselage and for several hundred feet behind.
They were being towed like water skiers, except that the medium that was supporting them was air. Soon they would be winched in.
Al Lonsdale, braced between Fitzduane and Cochrane, groaned as the flow of chill air revived him. Still disoriented, he opened his eyes and all he could see was an impression of the ground rushing below at impossible speeds as he flew through the night air.
Fitzduane 03 - Devil's Footprint, The Page 36
