Victor O'Reilly - The Devil's footprint

There was a tree stump in the tree line at the edge of the clearing roughly facing the entrance to his hut.

Someone was sitting on it, almost completely concealed by the surrounding trees. If he had not moved, Fitzduane would probably to, he considered, have seen him.

A threat? Not only were they inside the perimeter of Grant Lamar's Son Tay estate, but there was additional security around the training camp itself. Further, a potential attacker would not normally sit on a tree stump, albeit under some cover.

Still. A visual decoy was an old trick. You saw the one and forgot to consider the others.

At that moment, the figure stood up and stretched. Then it turned around to look in Fitzduane's direction.

The face was hideous, distorted, grotesque.

Then a hand came up and peeled the face away.

It was Grant Lamar, as elegantly dressed as always, the night-vision goggles dangling from his hand. He was smiling as he handed Fitzduane an envelope.

"It's a computer-enhanced enlargement courtesy of the National Security Agency," he said. "She's a beautiful woman."

Fitzduane tore open the envelope and stared at the picture. There was not enough daylight to be certain.

He ran to his hut and snapped on the light. The detail was blurred, as if slightly out of focus. Nonetheless, the likeness was unmistakable.

"Kathleen," he whispered. "Kathleen… Thank God."

Lamar entered the hut. For days Lamar had seen Fitzduane operate with a controlled purposefulness that betrayed little emotion and at times was almost cold in its intensity.

Now the Irishman stood there with tears streaming down his cheeks.

"Only fourteen hours old," said Lamar. "Straight from the Tecuno plateau courtesy of Aurora. Positive confirmation."

"The Devil's Footprint?" said Fitzduane.

"The Devil's Footprint," confirmed Lamar. "Huella del Diablo."

Fitzduane experienced such an intense feeling of joy and anger that he did not know quite whether to laugh or cry or shout or what to do.

After a couple of minutes he wiped the tears from his face. "I don't know how to thank you, Grant," he said.

"Do the deed," said Lamar. "Just do the deed."

The. 50-caliber GECALs arrived and were fitted.

The weapon operated on the Gatling principle. Each weapon had three electrically driven rotating barrels, so while one was actually firing the other two could be reloaded and have the crucial time necessary to cool down. The rate of fire could be varied from a thousand to two thousand rounds a minute.

A single. 50 multipurpose armor-piercing explosive round – correctly placed – was capable of penetrating a light armored vehicle or downing a helicopter.

The effect of a sixty-round burst fired in less than two seconds was awesome. Conventional cover was swept away. Anything short of a main battle tank was shredded. Reinforced concrete bunkers were drilled through as if by a jackhammer.

The weapons had quite phenomenal shock value.

The greatest benefit came from the GECALs antiaircraft capability. Reaction time was in fractions of a second. Low-flying helicopters now flew into a curtain of fire up to around 5,000 feet. Above that, the small, fast-moving Guntracks were hard enough to see, let alone hit, from the air. Further, Fitzduane had added the Shorts Starburst missile. Unlike the heat-sensitive Stinger, this was optically guided onto the target by a low-power laser beam and was immune to conventional countermeasures like dropping flares. It required some more operator skill, but a few hours' practice resulted in a steady kill rate up to a height of 20,000 feet. They shot against small Skeets targets that were one-twentieth the size of a typical fighter aircraft.

"We're taking along a few Stingers as well, because they are compact and everyone knows them," said Fitzduane, "but the Stinger, being heat sensitive, is at its best shooting at a target after it has made a pass over you. Then it goes for the hot tail of the aircraft like a bat out of hell. Well, that is fine, but by that time you have already been strafed.

"The advantage of the Starburst, although it is slightly slower, is that you can take out an aircraft before it can do the business, which is very nice. I'm a great believer in fucking the enemy before he fucks you. Also, if you find out the supposed attacker is friendly after you have fired – an embarrassing discovery – you can steer the thing away with the laser and detonate it safely."

Shanley nodded. Fitzduane had brought him along officially to see if the Magnavox thermal sight used on the Stinger could be adapted to work with the Starburst as well. Thermals were great at acquiring a target. You were able to detect not just the target itself but the heat all around it. Much more to see.

The unofficial reason was to sound him out on the mission. Fitzduane moved on to that delicate matter. Shanley was coming through the training with flying colors, but he had a wife and children and he was a civilian.

"I've thought about it, Hugo," said Shanley. "I've thought about it a great deal and I've talked it over with Lydia. The long and the short of it is, I've got to go on this thing. I've briefed guys before dozens of missions in the past and always wondered why they should be putting their asses on the line for me. Now I'm getting a chance to do my bit. It's just the right thing to do. I was at Fayetteville and I've seen what these people will do if given the chance. Well, they've got to be stopped, and I intend to help do it."

"Fifteen of us are going out, and even if we are successful, it is unlikely that all of us will make it back," said Fitzduane quietly. "You could be killed or wounded or taken prisoner. A professional soldier takes his chances. Risk goes with the territory. For a civilian it is very different. Whatever you feel inside, you are under no obligation to go. We all appreciate your technical input. You've nothing to prove."

Shanley looked at Fitzduane. "It's the right thing," he said firmly. "I know it's right, and so does Lydia. We've no second thoughts. Besides, Hugo, I've never seen a better-planned mission. This is gonna work."

As he drove away, Fitzduane felt weighed down by Shanley's words. He had been on enough missions t know that you could prepare as much as you wanted but death came randomly on the battlefield.

Would he bring Shanley back home to his little family? Who the hell really knew? Faith was great, but it was not enough.

Faith and firepower and a team of the right caliber. Now you were talking.

There still remained the problem of the supergun.

Fitzduane had pored over the intelligence information of every kind on the Devil's Footprint and amended his initial scenario to take in an assault on the weapon, but how to destroy it physically was another matter.

There was no shortage of ideas, but all foundered on the sheer size of the weapon and the time they would have to accomplish the task. Fitzduane was adamant they were not going to hang around. Once the alarm was raised, reinforcements from the Madoa air base could be there in twenty minutes or less, and there were two thousand troops who were likely to arrive with decidedly unfriendly intentions.

Acid down the barrel would work but would be dangerous to carry in sufficient quantity. Shaped charges could damage the breech but would take time to place correctly and would leave the bulk of the weapon unscathed. Using a plasma cutter would be possible but again would take far too long.

They considered seeding it with radioactivity until Lonsdale remarked that Quintana would still use the weapon and it would be just tough shit on the gun crew. Quintana was not renowned for concern about his workforce.

"What we really want to do is shake their confidence in the weapon itself," mused Maury during one bull session.