The Devil's Footprint (49 page)

During the daylight,
we want to be
invisible
.
 
During daylight,
we will be invisible
.
 
If we are going to be spotted, it is most
likely to be by aircraft seeing our dust trail.
 
By hiding up during the day under full camouflage with thermal blankets
and not moving, the chances of our being spotted are minimal.

"Normally, military choppers in this part of the world fly at five
thousand feet to avoid small-arms fire — at which height they will see
fuck-all.
 
The Guntrack is not a large
lump of metal radiating heat like a tank.
 
It is only about six feet wide and thirteen feet long — if you ignore
the pallet at the back, which adds only a couple of feet — so the whole damn
thing is small and low-slung and extremely easy to conceal, and thanks to its
plastic body and engine baffling and thermal camouflage it is a rotten thermal
target.
 
Nonetheless, don't get cocky.
 
Be
invisible!

"Night Two, one hour after last light, one vehicle will leave to do
a recce.
 
Upon its return, using our
night-vision equipment, the unit will advance one hundred and twenty kliks
towards the target, averaging about twenty kliks hour.
 
The formation will be diamond with the
command vehicle, Shadow One, in the center.
 
Point will stay half a klik ahead.
 
We will pause every half hour for five minutes for a listening watch.

"Make sure everything is padded, particularly the
weapons
mounts
.
 
Sound travels for miles
at night, so travel slow and quiet.

"As before, we will lie up during the day.
 
Night Three, again an hour after last light,
a recce Guntrack will move out, and subsequently we will again advance.
 
This time the objective will be to achieve a
hundred and ten kliks.

We will lager up several hours before Night Three at Strike Base, within
forty kliks of the target, so great care will need to be taken.
 
We will still be outside the defensive loop
which surrounds the air base and the Devil's Footprint, but we will be close
enough to need to be extremely cautious.
 
As best we know, no ground patrols come that far out, but you never can
be sure.
 
We do know that helicopters do
security checks over this area.
 
So I
want the unit to just osmose into the ground.

"We will arrive at Strike Base in time for a three-person recce team
to be able to move on to take a long, hard look at the target.
 
Remember, they will have forty miles cross
country to cover, so they will use silenced motorbikes for thirty-five kliks or
so and then foot the rest.
 
The objective
here is that recce team
be
in a hide overlooking the
camp before dawn.

"Recce team will stay in position for twenty-four hours right
through the day and into Night Four.
 
During that time, all strongpoints and routines will be logged together
with any other items of interest so that we have a complete idea of the
target's routine before we attack.
 
Sure,
we have satellite photos and much other
intel
, but the
Mark One eyeball still takes some beating.
 
So, twenty-four hours of surveillance before we move.

"One of the recce team will stay on watch while the others return to
Strike Base to brief us.
 
The stayback
will continue to log activities but won't make contact unless there is a
significant change.

"We will strike during Night Five.
 
The exact time will depend on their routine, but the provisional timing
is set for 0100 hours.
 
That is a time
when all good terrorists are tucked up in bed and when even the most
conscientious sentries are nodding off.
 
We will be in position several hours in advance.
 
I want everyone to have a chance to examine
the objective in detail before the assault.

"The objective, the Devil's Footprint, as you can see on the map and
have studied every which way, consists of two small dead-end valleys — box
canyons — separated by a promontory.
 
Facing
the two valley entrances, from the other side of the perimeter road, you can
see that the valley on the left —
Salvador
— contains the main camp and the valley on the right — Dali — the supergun and
supporting equipment.

"Both valleys are dominated by a fortified blockhouse built on the
promontory.
 
From up there, you command
all you survey.
 
You can fire down into
either valley.
 
You can protect the
rear.
 
You dominate the road.
 
You dominate the low hills on the far
side.
 
That blockhouse is pivotal
.
 
It is the high ground, literally and figuratively.

"One Guntrack is one fire team.
 
We have five fire teams at our disposal.
 
The plan of attack is that one team will neutralize the supergun while
two teams take out the terrorists in
Salvador
and rescue Kathleen.
 
The two remaining
teams will, respectively, neutralize the blockhouse and cover the perimeter
road at the front.
 
And that's it.
 
We're traveling light on this mission.
 
There is no reserve.

"The intention is that the assault be over within twenty minutes of
the initial contact.
 
We are not there to
slug it out toe-to-toe with the local militia.
 
We go in.
 
We do what is necessary
and then we get the hell out.

"To concentrate your minds, keep remembering ‘shoot and scoot.’
 
‘
Stay and pray’ will
get you killed.
 
If that is not enough
for you, try mathematics.
 
There are
nearly seven hundred bad guys in the Devil's Footprint and two thousand-plus
more just up the road at the airfield.
 
So do not do a Custer, people.
 
Hit them as hard as you can and then you're outta there.
 
You're invisible again.
 
You're gone!

"We came in from the northwest.
 
We're getting out southwest.
 
All
units will meet up at the RV and the will zigzag towards the pickup point.

"At this stage, all hell will be breaking loose and the element of
surprise will be gone, so the important thing will be to cover ground fast.

"The pickup point looks like another piece of desert these days, but
our research through the oil records says it is hard enough to take C130s and
was used as an airstrip during their exploration — but so were many other
locations as they moved around, so this should not stand out.
 
Better yet, we are planting remote-controlled
radio as we go in.
 
As we leave, they
will go on air and give the impression we are heading north.
 
And, as you know, we've a few other tricks.

"One final point:
 
Over the
past few years, the people we are going in to attack have wreaked unparalleled
havoc — mainly on innocent civilians.
 
Hundreds have been killed.
 
Thousands have been directly affected.
 
The quota of misery and suffering that these people have caused is
incalculable.
 
Left alone, what has
happened to date will seem as
nothing.
 
You do not build a supergun with
intercontinental capability unless you are serious.

"Our fundamental objective is not to warn these people or inflict a
sharp rap on the knuckles or put them on probation.
 
We're way past that stage.
 
So our objective, reduced to elementals, is
very simple.

"It is to destroy them.
 
It is
to kill as many of them as we can.
 
The
lesson must be:
 
Terrorism is not
conducive to longevity.
 
Terrorism gets
you killed.
 
So when your finger is on
the trigger, do not hesitate to fire.
 
It
is a hard paradox, but taking these people out will save lives.
 
And that is what the counterterrorist
business is all about."

Fitzduane, a faint smile on his face, looked up at the group.
 
"Well, folks, there is the mission
plan.
 
Clean, hard, and simple.
 
Comments?"

A member of the SAS contingent, Shadow Four, raised his considerable
eyebrows.
 
Bob ‘Brick’ Stephens, a short
squarish weather-beaten sergeant in his late thirties, spoke.
 
This was an event because Bob spoke
seldom.
 
His specialty was
demolitions.
 
Bob truly loved to blow
things up.

"Fly a thousand miles, spend five days in hostile territory in
plastic dodgems up against heavy armor, attack two positions defended by nearly
seven hundred men with another couple of thousand just up the road, kill an
inner core of fifty Yaibo terrorists, rescue a damsel, destroy a weapon that is
too big to be destroyed, and get out with half an army on our tail.
 
Hell, Colonel, it looks like a cakewalk.
 
Isn't there anything else you want us to
do?"

"Get back in one piece, Brick," said Fitzduane politely,
"if you would be so kind."

The Brick looked thoughtful and then he grinned.
 
He had spent six months with the Australian
SAS two years earlier.
 
"No worries,
boss," he said.

Fitzduane did not doubt him.

"Now to details," he said.
 
"I know you people love details.
 
I know you love checking on them even more."
 
He smiled.
 
"Again and again and again."

Outside the sun was setting.
 
Soon
it would be time.
 
Meanwhile, there was
work to do.
 
There was always
work
to do when Fitzduane was around.
 
The man knew how to push, and he never seemed
to let up.

20

Kilmara had arranged for the Bear to act as jumpmaster on Fitzduane's
C130 on the inward flight.

It was a good move.
 
There was
something vastly reassuring about the Bear's presence and about exchanging tall
tales as they flew.
 
It helped to
counteract the long buffeting ride in the Combat Talon and the smell of puke in
the aircraft and the suppressed terror as they hooked up and prepared to jump
into the darkness.

To step from safety into space was an unnatural act, and even though
Fitzduane had done it before and his brain told him it could be done, his very
being cried that
two hundred and fifty
feet was too low!
 
The parachute would
not open in time.
 
Could
not open in time.
 
The pilot would
misjudge the height.
 
Something would go
wrong
.

The incredible relief as the canopies blossomed — each and every
one.
 
And then the silence as the sound
of the aircraft receded and they lay there, weapons loaded and ready, getting
used to this new environment and listening for any sign that the DZ that was
supposed to be safe and empty was occupied and dangerous and they were about to
die.

As they flew in, the DZ had been scanned by sensors that could detect a
snake changing its sleeping position, but still he worried.
 
There were things you knew and there were
fears that impinged regardless of the logic.

But the sensors had been right.
 
There was nothing.
 
Just
backbreaking
work as the vehicles were
unpacked from
their drop pallets and loaded and readied.
 
And then more work as the pallets and ‘chutes were buried.
 
That was the toughest part, and really only
possible because each Guntrack came equipped with a miniature bulldozer blade
in front of it.
 
The primary role of the
blade was to enable to vehicle to dig itself in, but in this case it was used
to conceal the evidence of the incursion.
 
No ground patrol would pass by, but from the air one glimpse of a ‘chute
would be enough to raise the alarm.
 
The
burial process was thorough.

A final meticulous check of the DZ.
 
Nothing could be seen.

The column moved off.

When dawn came up, it was as if Task Force Rapier had vanished into the
rocky shale and
packed,
reddish clay of the plateau.

Nothing could be seen.

Underneath the camouflage nets, a quarter of the team manned sensor units
and other passive detective equipment, while the balance ate and slept and
cleaned weapons.

The heat steadily increased until by midday the whole plateau seemed in
shimmering motion.

In the shade, leaning back against the side of a Guntrack, Al Lonsdale
once again gave thanks to the designer of the Guntrack for building copious
water tanks into each vehicle.
 
He had
been trained to survive on a couple of canteens, but dehydration got to you in
the end no matter how good your endurance.
 
Here each track carried enough water to last a couple of weeks.
 
This was special-forces soldiering in
comfort.
 
The tanks were even muffled and
baffled inside to eliminate the sound of water sloshing as they moved.