Victor O'Reilly - The Devil's footprint

10

The Humvee ground its way over the dirt road of Maryland's Aberdeen Proving Grounds.

If you wanted to test and lobby for a weapon, this was the place to be. It was far from the only place to prove out instruments of death and destruction, but it was conveniently near Washington, D.C.

The vehicle crashed into yet another pothole, and its massive suspension took the imposition in its stride. Kilmara's back was not so tolerant. General Shane Kilmara was not overly fond of the U.S. Army's replacement for the jeep. He considered it too slow, too heavy, too noisy, too hard to maintain, and far too uncomfortable at his stage in life – but since it was on loan from the U.S. Army complete with driver, he was not complaining.

Someone with clout was backing Fitzduane's little enterprise, and all Kilmara could do was speculate a little and give thanks. Cochrane had muttered jokingly about guardian angels. Kilmara had been networking on the international special-forces circuit for a long time, and he did not think angels had anything to do with it.

"Sir, we're here," said the driver, halting the vehicle and applying the brake. She was about twenty-two, and her crisp BDUs bore sergeant's stripes and airborne insignia. Kilmara was all for having women in the armed forces if they looked like this. That was probably a sexist thought, but a man needed some variety from leathery sergeants.

"Sir, what are we looking for?"

"Dilger's Baby," said Kilmara absentmindedly.

"Sir, this is a weapons range," said the sergeant.

"I surely hope so," said Kilmara. He smiled. "Or we're in deep diddly."

He brought the field glasses up to his eyes. They had been given a map reference to drive to and not much explanation. He had been told to look, and he was looking.

He saw lots of land that looked as if things had exploded in it, on it, and over it rather too often, and not much else except armored vehicle track marks. There was not much cover. There were shell holes and the terrain undulated, but there were no bushes or trees or convenient dry stone walls to hide behind. This ground had been worked over.

Yet, if he had been informed correctly and if the crisp sergeant had navigated right, Fitzduane and Guntrack were within a few hundred meters of where he stood.

Kilmara searched by quadrant. Still nothing. He gave the binoculars to the keen-eyed young sergeant. "Look for a wedge-front tracked vehicle," he said, "probably under camouflage within, say, four hundred meters or so of here."

The sergeant made two circumferences. On the third sweep, her arm came out and pointed.

Kilmara looked where she indicated. He could just see something – maybe – but mostly it looked like more torn-up ground. He pulled out the personal radio he had been issued and pointed at the location. "Sergeant Hawkeye got you on her third iteration," he said. "I can't see a fucking thing."

"Encouraging," said Fitzduane's voice, "especially since there are five of us and we are all around you."

Small pieces of ground started to move.

Four lined up about thirty meters away, and the fifth came up close. It was not until the vehicles were less than fifty meters away that they were noticeable at all, and even then it was their movement more than shape that made them stand out from the landscape.

"Sexy," breathed Sergeant Hawkeye. "What are they, sir?"

"Think of the Three Wise Monkeys," said Kilmara, "and I'll tell you."

"See, hear, and say nothing," said Hawkeye, who had been cleared to Level One. "Deal, sir."

Fitzduane came over. "It's a Swiss-made material," he said. "Typically Swiss. Bloody expensive, but the stuff seems to work. Basically, within a limited range, it picks up the color of the surrounding terrain and blends. And it also cuts way down on your thermal signature. It is not general-purpose camouflage, but if you know where you're going, it will do the job."

Hawkeye was examining the Guntrack close up. "If you deploy your weapons fully, you lose some of the camouflage effect on the top, sir," she said. "You were cheating a bit."

Fitzduane smiled. "We were testing lying-up during the day, Sergeant," he said. "But you've got a point."

Kilmara was amused. "We really came to see Dilger's Baby," he said. "Surprise me."

Fitzduane pointed at what looked like a thick-walled pipe mounted on the back of a Guntrack. It had a crude, almost agricultural look, but the sight on top looked state-of-the-art. The whole thing, including the breech, was no more than seven feet long.

"You start off with the A10 Thunderbolt tank-busting aircraft," he said. "The Warthog. As you know, it's a slow-flying, rather ugly aircraft built around a huge multibarreled Gatling-gun that fires uranium-depleted rounds the size of milk bottles that go right through armor. Ground troops love it because it can stay in the battle zone for hours. Rumor has it the USAAF aren't too keen on it because it's slow and lacks avionics and they are not too fond of CAS – close-air support – in the first place.

"The upshot is that the A10 is being phased out. That means that a load of their GAU-8A Avenger guns are becoming available."

Kilmara made a gesture. "But that's a huge weapon," he said. "It's – I don't know – twenty feet long and weighs as much as a Cadillac." He pointed at the weapon on the Guntrack. "I don't get the connection."

"Think laterally," said Fitzduane agreeably. "That's what a man called Bob Dilger did. I guess it helped that he had been behind the A10 gun program in the first place. Anyway, he had the idea of taking just one barrel out of the seven and a simple six-shot, clip-fed breech and making a much simpler anti-armor weapon. Now you've got Dilger's Baby. It's the size you see, it weighs under a hundred pounds without mount, and it's deadly accurate. Ballistically it is remarkable. The projectile hits 1.9 kilometers a second, and up to two kilometers the trajectory is damn near flat. Armed with a laser sight it will substantially outrange any Soviet tanks short of the very latest models. Add Shanley's thermal gizmos and night becomes day. A single shot can plow through five feet of reinforced concrete or make the Fourth of July out of armor."

Kilmara was taking a folded checklist out of his map pocket. "It has come to a pretty pass when a cheap high-speed plastic box like the Guntrack can take out heavy armor."

Fitzduane smiled. "I don't know what it is, but there is something about a tank that makes people want to shoot at it. Thanks to technology, now they can. I expect people felt much the same about armored knights and bows and arrows."

He indicated the front gunner's seat.

Kilmara climbed in. He had ridden in all three crew positions quite a few times before, but always on testing and exercises. The knowledge that they were now preparing for a combat mission was a sharp reality check.

He put on the proffered helmet and plugged in the intercom. The helmet fit. A tag tied to the chin strap had listed his name. Hugo was like that.

The Guntrack purred almost silently into life. Early models had sounded like sports cars and had emitted the same exhilarating engine growls. Good for the adrenaline and bad for the life span. Now Guntracks were very, very quiet. And even that, in Fitzduane's opinion, was too noisy. Sound tended to travel at night, and that was when special-operations people, like vampires, mostly functioned best also. The idea was not to be seen – or heard.

Ten minutes later, Kilmara had gotten the point. The Guntrack had air brakes and hydraulics. They hissed to a halt.

Kilmara was contemplative. It had been a wild ride and the targets had snapped up without warning.

From exhilaration to absolute threat in maybe a tenth of a second. Maybe less.

"It's – it's different," he said.