Victor O'Reilly - The Devil's footprint

"The Army?"

"The Army are Dumb," said Carlson. "We're too honest, and that's why the other services get so much of the pie. But in this situation we need Devious – and maybe a few dozen penetrator bombs."

Six hours later, the shape of the plan had been established and now it was down to the planning staff to hammer out the endless details. No one in the 82 ^ nd seemed to need sleep.

Fitzduane headed away to get some rest. If General Gannon was right, he was going to need it before he met First Brigade's Scout Platoon.

When Carlson had heard that Fitzduane was jumping in with the Scouts, he had smiled. "The Devil's Footprint is going to be the least of your worries, Hugo. These people are crazy. Good – outstandingly good – but absolutely wacko."

General Gannon toured the post, checking on every aspect of the division's preparations. In any military operation every facet was interdependent, but never more so than in the 82 ^ nd.

The Airborne picked up their entire house and flew. If you forgot something you could not radio supply and request that they send it up the line. You brought everything – everything – with you or you did without. Sure, you could get resupplied with essentials from the air, but by the time that resource cut in the really critical time was normally over. The essence of airborne assault was speed and shock value – sudden overwhelming force appearing from nowhere anywhere on earth.

Global force projection.

Force was the key. When the Airborne jumped, the time for compromise was over. It was down to elementals. You killed them before they killed you. Yo smashed into the enemy. You destroyed them. You did not hesitate. When attacking a heavily defended airfield – a substantial piece of real estate – the normal takedown time was two hours.

Two hours of focused carnage.

Ironically, may people – even in the military – thought of the 82 ^ nd as a light division, incapable of delivering a real punch. It had indeed be true half a century earlier. Now the destructive power of the 82 ^ nd was awesome. True, it lacked the heavy armor of a mechanized division or the stupendous firepower of a modern MLRS-equipped artillery brigade, but that was more than compensated for by the way it worked with airpower. Air support was the 82 ^ nd 's heavy armor and artillery.

But even without airpower the 82 ^ nd was no longer a light division. Potent 105mm howitzers and heavy mortars gave artillery cover within fifteen minutes of the division's hitting the ground. The Stinger-equipped Avenger missile system secured the air. TOWS, Dragons, and AT4s provided potent antiarmor and anti-bunker capability.

The removal of the 82 ^ nd 's indigenous Apache helicopters had been a controversial decision, but the Kiowas had picked up the slack with a vengeance. They were small and hard to detect and easier to airship and maintain, and though they could not carry the same payload as the Apache, they did carry the lethal Hellfire missile system. Further, by ripping out the two rear seats and stuffing the bay helicopters with electronics, the Kiowas now had outstanding sighting systems and night-vision capability. So the switch had worked to the 82 ^ nd 's advantage. In fact, the controversy had been something of a storm in a teacup. On a combat mission, Apaches could always be attached to the 82 ^ nd if required.

The development in the 82 ^ nd 's combat effectiveness that had pleased Gannon, an old infantryman, most was night-vision capability. Traditionally, the cost of night-vision equipment had made selective issue to squad leaders and special forces the norm. Now every single trooper in the 82 ^ nd had advanced third-generation goggles with him as he went into battle. Teamed up with laser aiming devices with beams visible only to those wearing the goggles, the effect on small-arms accuracy had exceeded expectations. Everyone knew about the Air Force's smart bombs. An Airborne trooper's firepower now approached the same level of accuracy. What a trooper saw he could – and did – hit.

Lethal young men, reflected Gannon, which was the way it should be. There were not many of them to hold the line, and the threats in today's world were legion.

The names of operations were normally chosen at the highest levels, with a weather eye on the public relations impact. In this case, because the elimination of the Devil's Footprint was a personal matter for the 82 ^ nd after the Fayetteville bombings, General Gannon had been asked to choose his own name.

Gannon was a man who studied his craft in the belief that the core lessons of combat were timeless. He had named the mission OPERATION CARTHAGE. The Carthaginians had invaded Italy and had caused the Romans serious grief on their home territory. In return, the Romans had crossed to Africa, defeated the Carthaginians utterly, and had razed Carthage to the ground.

It had all happened more than two thousand years ago, but to Gannon the parallels were clear.

Lieutenant Luke Brock filled six empty quart-size Coke bottles with water and hung them from target frames.

This was not the kind of exercise the range officer would approve of, but Brock was more concerned with the combat effectiveness of his unit than range safety. In his opinion, the general unwillingness of U.S. forces to train under live fire was criminal. The do-gooder liberals who had pushed the safety-first approach through did not seem to understand that lives lost in training accidents were more than compensated for in combat. They also missed the simple truth that a soldier's life, by definition, could not be risk-free. This current notion of aiming for zero-casualty combat and compromising on the mission struck Brock as being the value system of traitorous assholes who did not give a fuck about the United States. Where would the nation have been if Washington had ordered his troops to go home in case they might get too cold!

The fact that the 82 ^ nd Airborne had to compromise on training because of the red cockaded woodpecker produced in him something akin to a killing frenzy. He thought of the damn bird every time he had to go on a mission. It seemed to evoke the right throat-cutting mental attitude.

He lay down between two target frames. Zalinski and Gallo were equally positioned. Zalinski was the spotter on this one, and Gallo the shooter. Gallo did not really need a spotter, since he worked out where the enemy sniper was, through some kind of Zen-based telepathy, but even the best sniper needed a partner to back him up. Accuracy was great, but God loved firepower too. Gallo had an M24. Zalinski had a customized SAW with a two-hundred-round box attached.

Brock spoke into his radio. "Counting down."

Ten seconds later, the first Coke bottle blew apart, spattering Brock with water. The enemy sniper would continue firing and moving every thirty seconds until all the bottles were destroyed or he was detected by Zalinski and Gallo. The enemy was between five and seven hundred meters away in brush and wearing a gillie suit, so spotting him was no easy task.

Gallo had his eyes closed and was lying on his back. It was a disconcerting habit for a sniper trying to track down a hostile, but it seemed to work for him.

Brock checked his watch. Five seconds more to go. Gallo normally seemed to sense the location of his man after the third or fourth shot, but he had been getting better recently. Some brain-enhancing herb he was taking. It helped to compensate for being with a woman, he said. Sex drained his powers and positively fucked with his concentration. On the other hand, without it, he went moody.

The second bottle exploded, this time showering Zalinski.

A split second later, Gallo rolled over onto his stomach and fired the laser attached to his sniper rifle. Green smoke spewed up from the brush. A direct hit.