Victor O'Reilly - The Devil's footprint

In this situation, managing your own team was almost an end in itself. It was a whole new layer of worry, and it brought home just what conventional command in combat was all about. There was a paradox in the situation. Special operations were intrinsically much more difficult – but also they were easier. Your training was better, funded, your equipment was normally better and your focus was tighter. Your main area of responsibility was destroying the enemy. It made life simpler.

Debris fountained fifty feet away, and the blast made Fitzduane hug the ground.

Four further explosions were even closer, but the line of impacts as the mortar bombs were walked in passed in front of them.

"Eighty-two millimeter," said Brock. "Ten to one they're moving the damn things around. "Counterbattery takes care of that shit, but that's not going to be a player until we've cleared the airfield. The CB is like… delicate."

Fitzduane smiled despite their decidedly hairy situation. Dirt was still clumping down on his Kevlar. A minor adjustment to the mortar's aiming mechanism and the Scout Platoon would have to be raked up before being body-bagged.

The counterbattery radar was the one and only item that the airborne did not parachute in. It could track an incoming round in flight and direct return fire before the enemy shell had even landed, but it was sensitive equipment and needed to be flown in. That could not be done until a safe landing zone was cleared and the physical obstacles were removed. Barriers of heavy rocks had been erected across the runway, interspersed with mines. It was all in a night's work to the paratroopers who dropped in with bulldozers and combat engineers, but it took time.

Brock was listening intently, a single earpiece pressed to his right ear.

"Affirmative, Viper One."

A Hellfire missile streaked diagonally across their line of sight and impacted about eight hundred meters away.

A flash lit up the sky, followed by a series of others as the mortar bombs blew.

Seconds later, pink flame spat at the ground as a C130 Spectre gunship hosed the area with its 20mm Gatling.

"Straight in the balls, Viper One," said Brock to the Kiowa Warrior pilot.

Two Kiowas, a pair of Sheridan tanks, and air had been tasked to support Fitzduane's mission, which gave his small unit the unusual luxury of being able to call in their own fire support. Normally they would have had to go through channels. The heavier the weapon, the higher the clearance required.

It all made a great deal of organizational sense, unless you were a lowly trooper eating dirt as your buddies died around you and you were helpless to respond.

Scout Platoon were certainly to helpless. Oshima, it was considered, as they had sat sweating in the confines of the SCIF, was worth some very special attention.

Fitzduane did not want Oshima. It had all gone way past that point. She had spilled far too much blood. He did not want a prisoner. He was going to kill her. When this was over, one or the other of them was going to be dead. Dead beyond any doubt.

He wanted her head. Literally.

"Trooper! Where the fuck is your rifle?" said Divisional Command Sergeant Major Webster to a Kevlared figure unfortunate enough to cross his path.

"I'm the padre, Sergeant Major," said the figure. "They don't trust me with one." He was carrying a small bag.

"A little early for spiritual guidance, sir," said Webster. "But the thing is, can you drive a bulldozer?"

"No problem," said the padre. "What do you want me to do?"

"Clear the crap off the runway, Padre," said Webster, "but watch the fucking mines. We don't have many bulldozers."

"Hooah," said the padre. It was nice to know where you stood in the pecking order.

He hopped up on the combat bulldozer. The unit spat black smoke and rumbled into action. There were flashes in front of him as combat engineers started to blow the mines. The runway stretched out ahead of him. What did you need to put down a C130? Two thousand to three thousand feet, he recalled.

"ALL THE WAY, PADRE!" shouted Webster, pointing down the runway.

The padre grinned and gunned the heavy machine forward. The Lord hadn't been a paratrooper, but in his opinion, he should have been.

The steering wheel felt sticky and the instruments were splashed with something. His seat was wet, and the dampness was soaking into his fatigues. The padre suddenly realized that he was looking at and sitting in his predecessor's blood.

Carranza knew they could not stay in the command bunker if they were going to do any good.

He was getting reports in by landline from all over the airfield. Paratroops had landed in strength, but so far they appeared lightly armed. Further, the bombing had eased off. By now most of the aircraft would be out of ordnance and fuel. That was the weakness of fast movers for close-air support. They had almost no loiter time.

Now, before the enemy troops got organized, was the time to act. For the next twenty minutes or so there was a strike opportunity ready to be used. Now was the time to use the armored reserve.

Forty T53 tanks together with supporting infantry in armored personnel carriers were ready in the underground cavern hollowed out under the main hangar, the control tower, and the surrounding marshaling area.

So far, by some miracle, neither the hangar nor the control tower had been hit. Probably the hangar was considered of no military significance since the runway was blocked, and as for the control tower, his one thought was that the Americans were keeping it intact because they would want to make use of it after they had secured the airfield.

Whatever the reasons, it did not matter. All that counted was that the reserve was intact and – properly deployed – it could win the day.

Paratroops had a mystique, but they were not supermen. In essence, once you stripped away the maroon berets and parachute wings and jump boots, they were nothing more than underequipped infantry. Look at what had happened at Arnhem despite all the weight of allied airpower. Armor had destroyed them.

Look at what had happened at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam. The French had been arrogant and had counted on their artillery and airpower to save them. But in the end the underdog had triumphed and the surviving French were marched into captivity.

Carranza was a keen student of military history, but his memory was selective and the memories that supported his thesis came from a different time.

But he was correct on one point.

The Airborne were particularly vulnerable after they landed and before their heavy firepower was fully unpacked and into action. But vulnerable did not mean helpless. And some heavy units were not just fast at getting into action. They were very fast.

He was entirely wrong in his assessment of the air. He knew nothing at all about the Kiowa Warriors.

"Major Carranza," said Oshima.

"Commander?" said Carranza.

"I would like you to lead the counterattack," said Oshima.

"Personally?" said Carranza.

"They need your leadership," said Oshima.

You're sentencing me to die, thought Carranza. We may well triumph, but I will be killed. It was less a feeling than a certainty.

It was odd. He did not feel anything except a certain impatience.

Oshima watched Carranza leave the command bunker. Twenty feet up, his armored reaction force sat waiting. Facing them was a ramp leading to a hydraulically controlled bombproof door similar to those installed on missile silos.

The armored door opened up directly into the hangar. For maximum shock power, the armored force could assemble a dozen tanks or more before attacking.

Individually, tanks could be picked off one by one, but en masse they were an armored fist that few soldiers could withstand.