Victor O'Reilly - The Devil's footprint

All things considered, Maury was doing a creditable job, but it would have helped if the table had been cleared first. As his ungainly legs shot out to the ever-increasing tempo of the hand-clapping, bottles, glasses, and other accoutrements flew in every direction.

It was chaos. It was a terrific party. Even Grant Lamar was letting his guard down. He had discarded his jacket and his tie was loose and his hair was disheveled. For the first time, Fitzduane saw not the Washington insider but the younger man who more than two decades earlier had penetrated deep into North Vietnamese lines to rescue American prisoners at Son Tay. Lamar had been there. He understood.

Al Lonsdale stood up, swaying slightly, a freshly opened bottle of beer frothing in his hand. He chugalugged half of it and then pointed at Maury. "Jesus, Maury, you're wrecking the place. We've got to clear the table first."

He seized the linen tablecloth and was soon joined by Cochrane and the others. "One-two-three, PULL!"

Maury leaped off the table as the command cut in and grabbed for the ornate central light fixture.

Lonsdale and his cronies, faced with no resistance, crashed backward to land in a tangle of arms and legs and tablecloth against the wall.

Maury shouted something triumphant in Russian at having escaped the fate that had been planned for him.

And then the light fixture gave way.

Fitzduane awoke slowly.

He had the sense it was afternoon – whatever afternoon was – but the effort of looking at his watch was not something he felt he should rush into. Besides, he could not see.

It was rather nice not being able to see. If he could ignore someone bashing his head with a baseball bat and the feeling he had swallowed rat poison, it was pleasantly peaceful.

He remembered you had to do something if you wanted to see, but exactly what that involved was proving elusive.

Eyes! Eyes came into it. He was sure of it.

He thought about eyes for a while. He had some, he was sure, but how you activated them was another matter. Perhaps there was a switch.

Well, it all seemed like too much effort. The world could go on without him.

He slept again.

The noise was vile, horrendous, horrible. It screamed at him, slicing through his safe, warm igloo of sleep like some manic snowplow.

"Uuuagh!" he groaned.

"What the fuck!" said a hoarse voice that seemed to emanate from somewhere in the neighborhood.

The banging came next.

Thump! Thump! Thump! Fitzduane was reminded of sheltering in some bunker while incoming artillery zeroed in. Only, this was much worse. Much, much worse!

"I'm going to shoot them down," said the hoarse voice. "Where's my gun? Has anyone seen my gun Where the fuck am I, anyway?"

There were bangs and crashes and then the sound of falling. Fitzduane decided he had better do something. He pushed his eyelids up and a vague blur appeared. He moved his watch close to his eyes. It did not help. The watch face seemed to have taken up swimming. He shook it a bit, but it still would not cooperate. It was about as static and well-defined as a pulsating jellyfish.

His hand touched a vase. There were flowers in it. He put his fingers into the neck of the vase and they came back wet.

He removed the flowers and poured the water over his upturned face. Paradise! It felt marvelous.

The thumping started again. He had not been aware it had stopped.

There was light coming from somewhere. He shuffled toward it, one hand feeling the wall, and stopped when he encountered a tensioned cord.

The cord did something, he was sure of it. Good or bad, he did not know. Either way, it was coming in handy to hang on to.

He swayed and pulled the cord to steady himself.

Light flooded the room. The Iwo Jima memorial floated toward him.

Hurriedly, he closed the drapes. Muffled shouting was now mingled alternating with the banging noise. He headed toward the door, silently praying they would not use the bell again. Another blast would surely kill him.

"I can't find my gun," said a voice.

Fitzduane's eyes swiveled slowly and grittily toward the noise. The process seemed to take an effort akin to sailors hauling up the anchor of a ship-of-the-line with a creaking windlass.

Lonsdale lay on a collapsed coffee table in his underwear and cowboy boots. His eyes were closed and his hands were flailing in slow motion.

Various other bodies lay littered around the room. Vague memories of the previous night's shenanigans came back to him.

He felt like smiling, but his facial muscles did not seem able to respond.

A party to die for. It seemed quite possible he'd succeed.

He leaned against the door and fumbled for the latch. There was a large drawing pinned to the back of the door. It had been done with a black felt pen on the back of one of the restaurant's giant menus.

The sketch showed the devil with his arms up, dancing as a circle of raiders fired at his feet. The body of each raider was loosely sketched, but the heads had been drawn with some care and each could be identified. Fitzduane himself, Lonsdale, Cochrane, Chifune, Oga. They were all there. The drawing had been signed: Grant Lamar.

The slogan was simple: ‘The Devil Raiders.’

Memories suddenly came flooding back. The Devil's Footprint. They had done it. They had really done it. They had done the impossible and had lived to tell the tale. Except Steve. Poor bastard.

He realized then that he had never expected to live. The odds had been too great. The planning too rushed. It had to be tried, but he had expected to die.

But they had done it – IT WAS OVER!

He opened the door. Kilmara stood outside in uniform, looking unusually pressed and polished and sharp.

But he was as nothing compared to the paragon beside him. Polished jeep boots with a shine so bright that Fitzduane felt he should have screwed up his eyes – except that they were screwed up already. A uniform that clearly had been intimidated into discarding even the smallest crease. A row of medals that was a one-man insult to the peace movement. A face that needed only bronzing to look instantly at home on a war memorial.

A maroon paratrooper's beret. The All-American divisional patch of the 82 ^ nd Airborne.

"What's up, Doc?" said Fitzduane.

"God, you look horrible," said Kilmara. "May we come in? This corridor is losing its charm. We've been here so long, we're taking root."

Fitzduane scratched his head. His hand came away full of wet petals and some kind of perforated metal gadget. He blinked and waved his visitors in.

Kilmara gazed around at the melange of bodies. Accompanied by the war memorial, he walked through to the kitchen, found Fitzduane a seat, and closed the door.

"This is Colonel Zachariah Carlson," he said. "He's flown in from FortBragg. I'll let him speak for himself."

The one-man war machine was looking slightly uncertain. He had heard about Hugo Fitzduane and his extraordinary mission, but this bedraggled, unshaven figure pulling pieces of greenery out of his hair did not quite fit the hero picture.

Still, orders were orders.

Carlson cleared his throat. "Colonel Fitzduane," he said. "The National Command Authority has ordered the 82 ^ nd Airborne Division to take out the terrorist base at the location known as the Devil's Footprint in Tecuno, Mexico."

Fitzduane's eyes rose slowly. "I could have sworn we did that," he said in a puzzled voice.

"You did a great job, Colonel," said Carlson. "But Rheiman – that prisoner you brought back – talked, and it seems there are weapons of mass destruction down there which pose an immediate threat to the United States. The bottom line is that the president has ordered us in."