Victor O'Reilly - The Devil's footprint

Skyhook worked.

Instinct suggested that they should have been jerked half to death or sliced into segments by the sudden pull of the line, but the reality was that initially they were pulled up rather than forward, and only slowly – relatively speaking – brought up to the speed of the roaring aircraft. Though hard to grasp by the uninitiated, it was a simple matter of geometry.

Quietly and consistently, Skyhook had worked for nearly fifty years, from the North Pole to Southeast Asia, ever since Robert Edison Fulton had invented it and tested it at his home in Connecticut.

The front of the line was secured by the retrieval mechanism in the nose of the aircraft, and the balance of the line now stretched under the fuselage and for several hundred feet behind.

They were being towed like water skiers, except that the medium that was supporting them was air. Soon they would be winched in.

Al Lonsdale, braced between Fitzduane and Cochrane, groaned as the flow of chill air revived him. Still disoriented, he opened his eyes and all he could see was an impression of the ground rushing below at impossible speeds as he flew through the night air.

Shock and disbelief hit him.

Holy shit! Everything his mother had said was true. He had died and gone to heaven and now he was an angel and he could fly! It was terrifying and it was incredible and it was unbelievably exciting. Well, who would have guessed!

He could see a light up ahead, and slowly they approached it. It was strange. Somehow it all looked familiar. And then there was the engine noise. How many hours had he spent listening to that noise on the way to or from a mission?

His feet touched the ramp and he was pulled in by the winch crew and the ramp was raised.

He looked around, and beside him he could see Fitzduane and Cochrane, and they were grinning with relief and clapping each other on the back and the crew were smiling and there were the familiar smells of the cargo bay of a Lockheed Hercules C130 Combat Talon.

He felt confused. He had enjoyed being an angel, albeit surprised that some of his more exotic physical peccadilloes had not counted against him. For instance, there had been those two…

He glared at Fitzduane.

"Boss, this isn't Heaven," he said indignantly.

Fitzduane gave the Bear a high five and then turned to Al.

"Well," he said tiredly, but with a smile playing about his lips, "it will do for me."

She was sleeping.

The blinds and drapes were drawn and only a dim sidelight illuminated the hospital room. He could see a drip feeding into her arm, and she was connected to a monitor. For a moment, despite what he had been told, he felt a spasm of dread.

Who knows what they did to her when she was a captive.

I can still lose her.

He closed the door gently and the hospital noises were muted. Carefully, he lifted a chair from the corner and placed it close to one side facing the bed so that he could look at her and be there for her when she awoke. He longed to touch her and hold her, but for now sleep was what she needed most.

He could hear her breathing, and the sound was deep and regular and so reassuringly familiar. Emotion welled up in him and quiet tears coursed down his cheeks. My wife. Kathleen. I have never seen you look more beautiful. I have never loved you more.

She was thin and malnourished. Her face was pale and scratched, and there were bruises around her neck and throat. Her hair looked as if it had been hacked off. There were more bruises on her arms, and as his gaze took in her bandaged hand where her finger had been severed, anger and horror and pity gripped him and left him shaken.

But you are back, my love. We found you and brought you back and every last effort was worth it.

Images of the carnage in the Devil's Footprint flashed through his mind. The guards outside the main camp, struck down without warning. Bodies spasming and falling in the sleeping area as rounds cut into them. Armored vehicles exploding and the screams of burning men.

So many dead. So high a price. But there were some situations where you had to fight. Evil was not some abstract notion. It existed, and you fought it without compromise until that battle was won. And you kept on fighting because the war, as such, never ended. Conflicting values. Those who wanted to build against those who were determined to destroy. It was the human condition. Reasonable people tended to rest up and drop their guard after a major struggle, but peace was an illusion. At best there was a lull in the fighting.

But while there was a lull you made the most of it. You loved and nurtured and regained your strength. And a few, a very few, kept watch. They did not rest. They stayed alert. Ordinary people with human strengths and failings who put their lives on the line to buy time for their fellows. People like Lee Cochrane and Maury and Warner. Men like Al Lonsdale. Women like Chifune. Unsung and unacknowledged except occasionally in time of open war. But mostly not just unrecognized, but unwanted.

The paradox of peace. The very people who made it possible were an unpleasant reminder of the alternative. They were starved of resources. Often they were shunned. Until the next time.

He dozed, his thoughts a fatigue-induced jumble. Great happiness and fear intermingled. Then one image began to dominate.

Oshima! She was still alive!

Fitzduane gave a start and rubbed his eyes. His unshaven chin itched, and the sand of Tecuno was still on his hair and skin and in his clothes.

The thought occurred to him that he had not slept in a bed for about a week. Catnapping on the web seating of a C130 went just so far. No wonder the gremlins were crowding his mind. Twelve hours' decent sleep in a proper bed followed by a long hot tub would restore his sense of proportion.

Kathleen was back. She was here with him. She was alive and soon she would be well, and that was what counted.

Fitzduane gazed at his wife, and without conscious thought his hand reached out and stroked her fingers and then her eyes opened.

For a moment, her eyes were those of a stranger. Terror and suffering kept in check only by force of will stared out at him, and nothing else so conveyed the horror of what she had gone through than that split second when he seemed to be able to look into her mind.

Then relief and joy came into her eyes. She stretched out her arms, then stopped and looked with wonder at her bandaged wrists. "No chains," she whispered. "No chains. They hurt so."

Fitzduane lay beside her and took her in his arms. "Never again, my love," he said quietly.

Her fingers touched his cheek. "You're all bristly, Hugo," she said sleepily. Her eyes were closed again. Soon her breathing was relaxed and regular.

A feeling of contentment and happiness so complete that he wanted to cry out – except he was too tired and certainly did not want to wake Kathleen – swept over him.

Memories of the mission were banished from his mind. Kathleen was safe in his arms, and that was what mattered.

Even better, Romeo and Julietta had survived the ordeal. The medical staff had warned Fitzduane not to have his hopes set high, but the examination had revealed that Kathleen, despite her ordeal, was still healthily pregnant. The doctor had given away the secret. Romeo and Julietta would be a girl. No penis could be detected.

"Sounds reasonable," Fitzduane had remarked gravely.

Rheiman shuffled into the interrogation room and blinked in the harsh fluorescent light.

His right handcuff was removed and then locked to an eyebolt in the interrogation table. The table itself was secured to the floor. A large mirror took up much of one wall. One-way glass, he knew with certainty, and behind it a select audience. An audience he had to win over if he was to live.