Victor O'Reilly - The Devil's footprint

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.

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.

Oshima was out, but her people could not see much better than they themselves could. Still, they had some advantage, because the wind was coming from behind them and blowing almost directly towards the observation posts.

Lonsdale, lying beside him with the. 50 Barrett, fired.

Fire blasted back, its sounds of origin blending with the storm. Beside them a trooper slumped, his face black with blood. Further aimed bursts searched out the paratroopers' position and filled the air with splinters.

The terrorists must have fixed their position from their exit hole. A flash of lightning revealed that the screaming wind had blown away much of their cover. The camouflage netting was gone. The carefully covered mesh of their hides had been scoured clean of earth and now served only to identify their position.

Fitzduane searched for a target. He caught a blur and opened up with two aimed shots. The blur dropped and he fired again. Muzzle flashes and incoming showed he had missed.

The flying sand seemed to part in front of him, and he saw a black shape emerge out of the storm. He slid back behind the parapet as the hand grenade blew. They were being pinned down and flanked.

Lonsdale rolled backward, his Kevlar split open and blood oozing from his skull.

Fitzduane rolled out of the observation post and sought out the grenade thrower. What kind of force were they up against? He realized that he had assumed that Oshima would either be alone or accompanied by only two or three followers. Could he be wrong? Had some external force managed to infiltrate? Were they being attacked from behind as well?

He knew that a line of observation posts overlooked the minefield and that there were hundreds of troopers within rifle shot and thousands more on the secured base, yet for all practical purposes he was virtually alone.

He wriggled forward, trying to detect movement. The wind was gusting. Sometimes he could see little further than the hand in front of his face, and then the wind would ease for a moment or gust in a different direction and he would be given a brief, tantalizing snapshot before the image was lost again.

He moved his right hand forward and felt flesh.

Pain screamed up his arm. He was being bitten.

The sky lit up and showed a face in front of him. The man's teeth were embedded in his hand.

Fitzduane lashed out with his left hand and caught the terrorist on the side of the head. The man's mouth opened in shock and Fitzduane felt his right hand come free. The cessation of pain as the man's teeth relaxed their grip was immediate and overwhelming.

He tried to grab his rifle, but his right hand would not seem to do his bidding.

The terrorist leaped forward as Fitzduane was rolling to one side.

The attacker missed Fitzduane but lashed out with his knife as he landed. The blow cut into Fitzduane's webbing and made a long thin diagonal cut across his torso.

Fitzduane unclipped a grenade and, using both hands, smashed the metal sphere into his attacker's face.

The man grunted and fell back.

Fitzduane raised himself over his attacker and hit him again and again in the face with the grenade. He could feel the man's bones breaking and the grenade getting slippery with blood. Each blow made his injured hand hurt agonizingly, but the intensity of the pain made him hit all the harder.

He dropped the grenade, found his rifle, put the muzzle against the side of the terrorist's head and pulled the trigger. The man's body jerked and he was completely still. Half his head had been blown away.

Fitzduane lay back panting. He flexed his right hand. It hurt, but his hand would now work. Compared to the intensity of the agony of the terrorist's bite had inflicted, the duller pain was almost welcome.

A figure rushed out of the swirling sand to Fitzduane's left. He was running hard. Fitzduane caught the silhouette of a Kalashnikov and fired two rounds from his rifle. The 5.56mm rounds hit, Fitzduane was certain, but the terrorist kept on coming. Adrenaline and desperation drove him. Waiting for days to break through the cordon of paratroopers, his body was now nearly unstoppable.

Fitzduane fired two three-round bursts and the terrorist stumbled and fell to his knees.

There was a vivid flash of flame and the terrorist was flung backward as a. 50 explosive round hit him.

Fitzduane saw Lonsdale slumped against a rock, the Barrett wavering in his hand. Half his face was obscured with blood. Fitzduane moved forward and as Lonsdale began to collapse, then helped him to the ground. Brock appeared and slid into the observation post. He took one look at Lonsdale and pulled out a field dressing.