She hesitated. If only she had more time. One missile would accomplish so little compared to what could be done. Now when she fired, the attacking paratroops would certainly assault the supergun valley and there would be no time to reload.
This would be one single gesture of hate, not the orchestrated campaign she would have liked.
Could Carranza's force make the difference? Possibly, but unlikely.
Never wait until the last minute, the Hangman had said. Society is corrupt. People are venal. You will always be presented with other opportunities. They will hand you the very weapons you need to destroy them. In their avariciousness and ignorance they arm their very enemies.
Strike without pity and disappear. Prepare your escape route in advance, and when they think they have you, hurt them.
The confusion will aid your escape. When they are close and think they have you they get careless. They always do. You bait the trap and they will enter it and be destroyed. But don't be greedy. Don't stay and watch. Never wait until the last minute.
Jin Endo would be coming with her and five others. Enough to fight a rear-guard action if needed. Enough to distract and confuse, yet a small enough group to evade detection.
Six others in the command bunker would not be leaving. They had served their purpose. If left unharmed they might have attempted to interfere with the nerve-gas mechanism. Their throats had been cut as they sat in front of their consoles, and the air was thick with the smell of their blood.
The two cylinders sat linked to the dispersion unit. A timer was attached, ready to be activated. When their attackers broke in, the entire command bunker would be flooded with nerve agent, and with luck it would spread throughout the complex and to the attacking troops beyond.
But she would have to be well away by then. So really there was no good reason to wait.
Oshima mentally counted down, preparing herself for the shaft of flame as the huge weapon hurled its projectile toward Washington, D.C. In her mind she could see the path of the missile as it shot out of the supergun barrel, climbed up into the stratosphere, and then curved gracefully down toward its target below. How long would it take? A few minutes, no more.
As the missile neared its destination, a pressure-controlled mechanism would activate the two cylinders of gas. They would blend and become a liquid horror. The dispersion unit would cut in and the air over the capital of the most powerful nation in the world would fill with a vast cloud of nerve gas.
Invisibly the deadly miasma would float toward the ground.
It would be hours before the Americans would realize they had been hit, and by then it would be too late. Everywhere people would start dying. They would die at work, they would die at home. Senators and congressmen would collapse as they spoke. Lobbyists would spit blood as they advanced their causes. Policemen would die as they patrolled the streets. Prisoners would puke their guts out as they lay behind bars.
Across the Potomac, the military in the Pentagon would be hit and would be powerless to respond.
In Arlington and Rosslyn and a score of suburbs, citizens would drink the contaminated water and be affected. Ice cubes would kill. The touch of a hand or the gentlest of kisses would kill. The air itself, the very grass you walked on, the ventilator in your automobile. All would kill.
The cameras concealed throughout the supergun valley had audio pickups as well as visual. Oshima wanted to savor every detail. She heard the klaxon sound and saw the gun crew put on ear protectors and scurry for cover in the firing bunker.
The supergun was a truly massive weapon, and as Oshima looked at the monitors, she was entranced by the sheer destructive potential of such power. And you could make one of these things out of microfiber-reinforced concrete. The implications were exhilarating.
The countdown in Spanish commenced. "Five — Four — Three — Two — One — FIRE!"
The last word issued in a triumphant shout and then repeated by Oshima. "FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!"
There was the expected thunderclap of explosions, but the sight Oshima actually witnessed strained her credibility.
The entire supergun, all 656 feet and 21,000 tons of it, blew apart in a rippling roaring thundering inferno of flame and destruction that was the most powerful explosion that Oshima had ever seen.
The structures in the valley were swept away as if by some Devil's breath.
The glass-fronted bunker containing the terrorist firing team — set across the divide of the valley — was hit by the blast wave and shattered as vast lumps of flying matter smashed into it.
For the next few seconds, the sky rained pieces of the supergun and a thick cloud of dust and debris stained the sky.
And then there was a dreadful silence.
"Fitzduane-san!" hissed Oshima, the hate thick in her voice.
27
Dr. John Jaeger stepped out of the Blackhawk helicopter and, holding his hat on his head, ran through the dust storm created by the downdraft of its rotors. Beyond the fog of sand, the harsh sun of the Tecuno plateau cut in and he slipped on his sunglasses with relief.
Madoa airfield was well and truly under the control of the 82nd Airborne. Around him paratroopers were methodically scouring every inch of the air base, while up above armed helicopters and gunships kept watch. Above them again there would be a combat air patrol.
It was over. But then again, you never quite knew.
Security was tight. A C130 making its approach fired red flares to distract any straggler with a handheld missile foolish enough to try anything, then dropped in like a stone in the stomach-wrenching maneuver know as a combat assault landing. Jaeger had experienced the procedure when he and his team were flown in, and suddenly he realized why the Airborne preferred to jump.
He found Fitzduane near what might have been some kind of barracks building. It was hard to tell after the air force had worked it over, but a cargo parachute had been erected like a giant tent to give some shade. Inside, the filtered light was curiously peaceful.
The Irishman was lying back in a wooden tub watching a yellow plastic duck bob up and down in the water in front of him. He had a glass of red wine in one hand.
Various other camouflaged figures sat in makeshift chairs in the general vicinity. He recognized Lonsdale and Cochrane, and there was a stocky lieutenant who looked as if he could life weights with his little finger. His eyes were closed. Farther back, other paratroopers were asleep.
"The tub was Oshima's, they tell me," said Fitzduane. "Damn near the only thing that wasn't blown to hell and back."
Jaeger collapsed with some relief into what passed for a deck chair and accepted a glass of wine. "The duck?" he said.
"The duck belongs to my son," said Fitzduane. "I gave it to him, but he loaned it to me. Sort of a good-luck charm. To bathe without one is uncivilized — though not everyone knows that."
Jaeger drank his wine. The atmosphere was pleasantly relaxing. It was like sitting on the porch after you'd done everything that had to be done and now you could just swap yarns and listen to the crickets before falling asleep. Only, there weren't any crickets. Instead there were the snores of sleeping paratroopers and crawling things that were mostly lizards but were occasionally scorpions.
"So it worked," he said. "I was having a nightmare about the whole thing, but it really worked like we hoped. "We've just checked the Devil's Footprint and the area all around. Not a trace of nerve agent. Nothing. And the gun is shredded. It really bloody worked."
Fitzduane looked at him. "Hoped?" he said incredulously. "Tell me you were certain it would work, or I'll have Brock shoot you."
"When you put it like that — I was certain," said Jaeger. "We fuck up on nukes now and then at Livermore, but when it comes to hydrogen superguns we're aces."
"I'm going to shoot him," said Brock sleepily. "He didn't say positively."
"But what about Oshima?" said Jaeger. "Where's Oshima?"
"Good question," said Fitzduane.
"Well, if sh
e's inside the command bunker, she's dead," said Jaeger. "And so would you lot have been if you'd blown that door."
There was silence. No one particularly wanted to be reminded of how close they had come to blasting their way into a slow and messy death. After Madoa Air Base had been secured, the command bunker had been drilled by a chemical warfare team and found to contain lethal quantities of Xyclax Gamma 18 under positive pressure. Opening the door would have cause the nerve agent to flood out into the subterranean complex and possibly to spread throughout the airfield itself.
The decision had been taken to seal off the bunker rather than break in, while the chemical-warfare team figured out a way to decontaminate it safely. The problem was not straightforward. The nerve gas was volatile and so would ignite, but if the bunker contained explosives in addition to the gas, the combination could be akin to exploding a rather large bomb. True, it was sixty feet underground, but the extensive subterranean evacuations meant that there was no guarantee the effects of an explosion would be contained.
Jaeger was confident that the problem was solvable, but meanwhile it meant that no one had actually physically searched the bunker. Special suits and equipment were being flown in. In the back of his mind was the thought that some 41,000 tons of chemical agent were lying around the former Soviet Union. This was a problem that was not going to go away.
"We don't think she's dead," said Fitzduane. "If the pattern is any indication, she is lying low waiting to make a break for it."
"So you think she left the command bunker and is now hidden in some hidey hole under this place," said Jaeger.
Fitzduane nodded.
"So one of these days — if your theory is right — she is going to pop out of the ground and make a run for it," said Jaeger. "But when and where? And how long can you wait? I love my country, but I know its faults. The U.S. of A. likes sprints, not marathons."
* * * * *
General Mike Gannon was feeling progressively more impatient.
The 82nd Airborne was designed to carry out strategic missions rapidly and then be pulled out. Subduing the Devil's Footprint terrorist complex had been achieved. Keeping two brigades tied up now that the mission had been accomplished struck him as a misuse of resources.
He was itching to head back to Bragg.
"One goddamn terrorist and the entire division is tied up," he growled. "This is ridiculous. How much effort is Oshima worth? We've searched the entire Devil's Footprint complex, and diddly squat. She's either dead or she's long gone."
"She's still here, General," said Fitzduane with absolute certainty.
Gannon glared at him. Colonels were supposed to agree with generals, but this damned Irishman had his own way of doing things.
"I agree, sir," said Dave Palmer.
Gannon's eyebrows shot skyward. Fitzduane was one thing, but Palmer was his exec and definitely part of the system. He was supposed to snap out "Airborne!" in agreement and go with the flow.
"Colonel Palmer," he said. "Getting shot down and reincarnated has scrambled your brains. This division is not a democracy."
"Airborne, sir," said Palmer. He had a great deal of sympathy for the CG. Gannon genuinely cared about his men and fought to see that they were properly utilized. But on this issue he backed Fitzduane, and his eyes still showed it.
Mollified but not fooled, Gannon looked at Palmer, then at Fitzduane and the others in the group. He tapped the map. "So where is she?" he said. "And why haven't we found her? What haven't we done?"
"If she has run true to form," said Fitzduane, "she will have left the command bunker through an emergency tunnel and be holed up somewhere sixty feet underground waiting to make her move. The emergency tunnel will have been deliberately collapsed behind her. The only way we could have found her would have been by stumbling over her ventilation point, and even that would have been disguised."
"Tunnels," said Gannon in disgust. "Hell of a way to fight a war. Vietnam was full of the things, and we never completely winkled the gutsy little bastards out of them. But who'd have thought they would have built hundreds of kilometers of the things."
"The positive news, General," said Fitzduane, "is that we've got hold of the geological reports and they indicate you couldn't tunnel as and where you like. There is too much rock. So if Oshima is sitting underground, the chances are that she is somewhere on the north side."
"So where will she come up?" said Gannon.
"Somewhere on the northern perimeter outside the minefields," said Fitzduane. "She will do it at night."
Gannon studied the map. "That's still a whole lot of territory to watch," he said. "Worse yet, it's broken ground. Not a lot of major cover, but more than enough for someone crawling on their belly. But after that, what then?"
"There will be a cache of supplies a couple of kliks away," said Fitzduane. "Food, water, weapons, and probably some kind of transport. Something easy to conceal that can handle this terrain. Maybe a motorcycle or all-terrain vehicle."
"We can't find the cache either?" said Gannon.
"No, sir," said Palmer. "But we're still looking."
Gannon was lost in thought. He tried to imagine what it must be like to spend days underground while others hunted you. Foul air, little or no food, stale water at best, the constant fear of suffocation, darkness, no sanitation, insects, snakes, and who knew what else. A vile existence, but some people were prepared to endure it. Evidently, Oshima was prepared to endure it. You could hate your enemies and kill them without compunction, but it never paid to underestimate them.
"Run me through the perimeter surveillance."
Palmer explained the system of observation posts. Each sector was being watched by two teams, one using thermal sights and the other using night vision. In addition, antipersonnel radar equipment and chemical sensors had been set up. Theoretically a snake should not have been able to slither through without being detected, but Gannon knew that completely sealing off an area in reality was close to impossible. People got tired, equipment failed, batteries had to be changed. Even if you put a soldier every couple of yards, a skilled operator could get through.
"How long will she wait?" said Gannon.
"Forty-eight hours minimum," said Fitzduane. "Up to a month if she has to. Her main problem will be water, but she's had plenty of time to prepare so there's probably a tank of it down there. But my guess would be that she'll try and move out sooner rather than later. If she gives us too much time we could just get lucky. Also, our chemical sensors will have more to work with. She could well have carbon filters down there, but every day the stench is going to get worse."
Gannon walked around the map. It was hard to fault the staff work, but something — some assumption — just wasn't right. Reluctantly, he admitted to himself that Oshima was probably still around and that she was certainly worth taking out of the loop.
But something was wrong. It came to him.
"Your surveillance is based on the assumption she's going to emerge outside the perimeter?" he asked.
Fitzduane nodded.
"And outside the perimeter minefields?" said Gannon.
"Affirmative, General," said Palmer.
Gannon shrugged. "Maybe," he said. "But if I was her, I would come up inside the minefield. Especially if I knew where the mines were laid."
"Tiptoe through the tulips," said Fitzduane. "Only, the next in line gets blown up."
"I've got another point," said Gannon. "This meticulous surveillance is all very well if the Tecuno plateau remains its normal equable self — hot days and cold clear nights. But if the weather takes a turn? If Oshima isn't alone?"
"It could get messy, sir," said Palmer.
"Colonel Fitzduane?" said Gannon.
"It will be our mess," said Fitzduane.
"Does ‘our’ include Lieutenant Brock's Scouts?" said Gannon.
"I guess it does, General," said Fitzduane. "Instant compatibility, you might say."
Gannon smiled thinly.
&n
bsp; 28
Lightning lanced out of the sky and the battlefield radar blew in a shower of sparks.
"What the fuck!" said Brock. "Whose side is this guy on?"
The sky flared again and again and the deafening cracks of thunder cut in so fast that Fitzduane had the sense of being directly bombarded. The sensations were primeval, terrifying. He wanted to crawl under cover, to pull the blankets over his head. This was not a thunderstorm. This was not weather. This was violence on an almost supernatural scale. And he had no blanket. Conditions in the observation post were basic.
A scorpion raced across the ground, stopped to stare at them, then headed down into a hole.
"Did he say something?" said Lonsdale.
"‘Follow me!’" said Cochrane.
Lightning cracked into a massive boulder off to the right. The huge rock cracked in two with a smell of ozone. One side swayed and then rolled over toward the Scout fire team. There was a single short scream and then a brief silence. Brock, bent double, headed toward the noise.
The thunder cut in again, and Fitzduane could hear the sound of shouting. He checked his watch. It was 0323. Something was moving up ahead and to the right. They were in an observation post on a slight rise overlooking the minefield and it was beginning to look as if Oshima was making her run. Unfortunately, she had picked her time all too well. Air was grounded, communications were haywire, and the array of vision and detection equipment was effectively neutered.
Nature was effortlessly sweeping aside their technological advantage.
The entire ground in front of him was beginning to move. The wind gusted and screamed. The surface was being blasted into the air and there flung against — and into — anything that protruded. Sand and grit stung his face, clogged his mouth and nostrils, and cut down his vision.
There was a sharp, deadly crack of high explosives, and then secondary explosions. The thunder of the storm was so loud and so close that at first Fitzduane was unsure whether he was hearing nature at work or the killing blast of a mine. The secondaries suggested a mine. Someone had stepped in the wrong place and the explosion had set off grenades they were carrying.
Fitzduane 03 - Devil's Footprint, The Page 46
