26
Fitzduane let his rucksack drop away on its line as he flared in.
The ruck would hit first and he would land lighter, but that was not going to be much use if he landed smack in front of a terrorist bunker.
It was not an academic thought. He was used to the more maneuverable rectangular ram air ‘chute, and the circular T15 the airborne used was markedly less responsive.
He had remembered too late and now was going to pay the penalty. What a fucking stupid, unprofessional error.
He hit hard and then skidded onto his back. Pain shot through his body and then he smashed into something soft and yielding. Without question, it was the worst landing he had made in he hated to think of how many jumps. He was lying on — or half in — an eviscerated body. Whose side it belonged to it was impossible to tell.
Flame stabbed over his head and turned into green tracer. The noise was deafening.
With horror he realized he was lying directly under the firing aperture of the bunker. The only good news was that the gun crew inside had been temporarily blinded by his parachute wrapping itself around the emplacement.
There was a surge of flame as the heavy machine gun fired again through the folds of fabric and his parachute ignited.
Fitzduane rolled to one side, turning over again and again, and as he did so an AT4 rocket flamed out of the darkness and hit the bunker just below the aperture. The structure exploded.
Figures stumbled out of a trench at the back of the bunker. Silhouetted against the sudden flame of an A10 missile strike on the perimeter, he could see the curved magazines of AK-47s.
There were six terrorists in the group. Two seemed dazed, but the others carried themselves as if they would like to find out who had blown up their home.
Fitzduane's M16 was still in its padded jump case. He was of the opinion that this might be a great idea to avoid unnecessary damage while training, but as a combat technique he thought it sucked. He was going to die because some bean counter objected to wear and tear on the weaponry. If he got back, he was going to find whoever ordered this idiot shit and do something unfriendly to them.
He pulled a Willie Pete from his map pocket, pulled the pin, hoped the fuse had been set correctly, and waited three long seconds.
The terrorists heard the sound of the pin being removed, but identifying a single sound when the world is blowing up around you was not easy. In the background Fitzduane could see the breath of a dragon as an A10 blasted uranium-depleted shells at a terrorist tank.
The tank exploded as Fitzduane threw the grenade.
As the missile left his fingers he drew his pistol and fired twice at one terrorist who had been turning toward him. The rounds hit the man in the face and snapped his head back just as the phosphorus grenade exploded.
Two terrorists were left standing as white smoke eddied around them. Both were burning, one screaming terribly.
Fitzduane fired again, double-tapping head shots.
Both figures slumped.
A smell of still-burning flesh wafted toward him. The phosphorus burned at 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit and was nearly impossible to put out.
He cut his M16 out of its case with his fighting knife and jacked in a round. The A10s and C130 Spectre gunships were pounding the perimeter, but unless requested the center belonged to the airborne.
Despite the background of flashes, it struck him that the place was damn dark, and then he remembered the night-vision goggles on a cord around his neck under his shirt. He pulled them out and clipped them on his Kevlar.
His heart gave a sudden start.
Half a dozen infrared-detectable laser beams were focused on his torso. That they had not fired already was encouraging, but the thought that six charged-up paratroops had him in their sights was a little chilling.
"Dead woodpecker," he croaked.
"Fuck ‘em all, Colonel," said Brock cheerfully.
His shape detached itself from the ground, moved forward, and then went down again.
I'm up, I'm seen, I'm down. You took longer, and if your enemy was remotely competent you died. And God will miss you. Only the glint tape on his helmet — detectable solely with the night vision goggles and the air force's equipment — gave away his position. Brock was one mean mover, and judging by how little Fitzduane could see of his platoon as he looked around, he had trained his men equally well.
"Situation?" said Fitzduane. Carlson had remarked that no matter how much you prepared, command during the first thirty minutes of a large-scale drop was at best all about managing chaos. Even in a tight insertion, heavy equipment ended up in the wrong place and units got horribly mixed up. Enemy fire and other hostile action compounded the confusion.
An airborne assault initially tended to be a controlled mess. Resolving that mess was less up to the commanders than to the initiative of little groups of paratroopers. In the opinion of the airborne's critics, it was a horrible way to run a war and alarmingly untidy.
The only thing that could be said in its favor was that it worked.
"I've rounded up most of the platoon," said Brock. "Two are still missing, but they know the objective. Sorvino caught one from that emplacement." He made a gesture toward the smoldering ruins of the heavy-machine-gun position. "He's dead."
"Cochrane?" said Fitzduane.
"We've got him," said Brock.
"Give me the rest of it," said Fitzduane.
"The air force have well and truly worked over the heavy hostile positions," said Brock, "but there are a lot bad guys out there spread out in small groups and moving around through linked spider holes and tunnels. That means you don't know where they are going to pop up. If their shooting was a little better we'd have to earn our pay, but as it is they tend to fire high and don't live long enough to adjust. But we're taking some casualties. There is just too much hot metal flying around. It will get easier when our heavy stuff cuts in. It will get a whole lot worse if a reserve starts to throw at us. It's their armor that worries me. They're supposed to have it, but I don't see it. So where is the stuff? It's a fucking shell game."
The RT operator called Brock and he took the proffered microphone.
Around their position Fitzduane could hear and see the volume of fire emanating from the 82nd rapidly increasing as units and impromptu fire teams got their bearings. Targets were being identified and M60s were methodically clearing out their designated sectors with SAWs, rifle fire, and grenades. Bunkers were being taken out with AT4s and the smaller LAWS.
On a terrain or model map, Madoa airfield encased in its perimeter defenses had seemed a neat, manageable size.
On the ground, it was brought home to Fitzduane just how large any full-size airfield really was. Two brigades of the 82nd had dropped onto the place, and now, from his ground-hugging position, the area looked surprisingly empty. True, competing tracers sliced the air and there were constant flashes and explosions over a background of machine-gun and rifle fire, but there were almost no people to be seen.
They were surrounded by thousands of troops trying to kill each other, but from his position they were invisible. It was disconcerting. Fitzduane was used to special-operations missions where your own group was so small virtually your entire focus could be on the enemy.
In this situation, managing your own team was almost an end in itself. It was a whole new layer of worry, and it brought home just what conventional command in combat was all about. There was a paradox in the situation. Special operations were intrinsically much more difficult — but also they were easier. Your training was better, funded, your equipment was normally better and your focus was tighter. Your main area of responsibility was destroying the enemy. It made life simpler.
Debris fountained fifty feet away, and the blast made Fitzduane hug the ground.
Four further explosions were even closer, but the line of impacts as the mortar bombs were walked in passed in front of them.
"Eighty-two millimeter," said Brock. "Ten to one they're moving the damn things around. "Counterbattery takes care of that shit, but that's not going to be a player until we've cleared the airfield. The CB is like... delicate."
Fitzduane smiled despite their decidedly hairy situation. Dirt was still clumping down on his Kevlar. A minor adjustment to the mortar's aiming mechanism and the Scout Platoon would have to be raked up before being body-bagged.
The counterbattery radar was the one and only item that the airborne did not parachute in. It could track an incoming round in flight and direct return fire before the enemy shell had even landed, but it was sensitive equipment and needed to be flown in. That could not be done until a safe landing zone was cleared and the physical obstacles were removed. Barriers of heavy rocks had been erected across the runway, interspersed with mines. It was all in a night's work to the paratroopers who dropped in with bulldozers and combat engineers, but it took time.
Brock was listening intently, a single earpiece pressed to his right ear.
"Affirmative, Viper One."
A Hellfire missile streaked diagonally across their line of sight and impacted about eight hundred meters away.
A flash lit up the sky, followed by a series of others as the mortar bombs blew.
Seconds later, pink flame spat at the ground as a C130 Spectre gunship hosed the area with its 20mm Gatling.
"Straight in the balls, Viper One," said Brock to the Kiowa Warrior pilot.
Two Kiowas, a pair of Sheridan tanks, and air had been tasked to support Fitzduane's mission, which gave his small unit the unusual luxury of being able to call in their own fire support. Normally they would have had to go through channels. The heavier the weapon, the higher the clearance required.
It all made a great deal of organizational sense, unless you were a lowly trooper eating dirt as your buddies died around you and you were helpless to respond.
Scout Platoon were certainly to helpless. Oshima, it was considered, as they had sat sweating in the confines of the SCIF, was worth some very special attention.
Fitzduane did not want Oshima. It had all gone way past that point. She had spilled far too much blood. He did not want a prisoner. He was going to kill her. When this was over, one or the other of them was going to be dead. Dead beyond any doubt.
He wanted her head. Literally.
* * * * *
"Trooper! Where the fuck is your rifle?" said Divisional Command Sergeant Major Webster to a Kevlared figure unfortunate enough to cross his path.
"I'm the padre, Sergeant Major," said the figure. "They don't trust me with one." He was carrying a small bag.
"A little early for spiritual guidance, sir," said Webster. "But the thing is, can you drive a bulldozer?"
"No problem," said the padre. "What do you want me to do?"
"Clear the crap off the runway, Padre," said Webster, "but watch the fucking mines. We don't have many bulldozers."
"Hooah," said the padre. It was nice to know where you stood in the pecking order.
He hopped up on the combat bulldozer. The unit spat black smoke and rumbled into action. There were flashes in front of him as combat engineers started to blow the mines. The runway stretched out ahead of him. What did you need to put down a C130? Two thousand to three thousand feet, he recalled.
"ALL THE WAY, PADRE!" shouted Webster, pointing down the runway.
The padre grinned and gunned the heavy machine forward. The Lord hadn't been a paratrooper, but in his opinion, he should have been.
The steering wheel felt sticky and the instruments were splashed with something. His seat was wet, and the dampness was soaking into his fatigues. The padre suddenly realized that he was looking at and sitting in his predecessor's blood.
* * * * *
Carranza knew they could not stay in the command bunker if they were going to do any good.
He was getting reports in by landline from all over the airfield. Paratroops had landed in strength, but so far they appeared lightly armed. Further, the bombing had eased off. By now most of the aircraft would be out of ordnance and fuel. That was the weakness of fast movers for close-air support. They had almost no loiter time.
Now, before the enemy troops got organized, was the time to act. For the next twenty minutes or so there was a strike opportunity ready to be used. Now was the time to use the armored reserve.
Forty T53 tanks together with supporting infantry in armored personnel carriers were ready in the underground cavern hollowed out under the main hangar, the control tower, and the surrounding marshaling area.
So far, by some miracle, neither the hangar nor the control tower had been hit. Probably the hangar was considered of no military significance since the runway was blocked, and as for the control tower, his one thought was that the Americans were keeping it intact because they would want to make use of it after they had secured the airfield.
Whatever the reasons, it did not matter. All that counted was that the reserve was intact and — properly deployed — it could win the day.
Paratroops had a mystique, but they were not supermen. In essence, once you stripped away the maroon berets and parachute wings and jump boots, they were nothing more than underequipped infantry. Look at what had happened at Arnhem despite all the weight of allied airpower. Armor had destroyed them.
Look at what had happened at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam. The French had been arrogant and had counted on their artillery and airpower to save them. But in the end the underdog had triumphed and the surviving French were marched into captivity.
Carranza was a keen student of military history, but his memory was selective and the memories that supported his thesis came from a different time.
But he was correct on one point.
The Airborne were particularly vulnerable after they landed and before their heavy firepower was fully unpacked and into action. But vulnerable did not mean helpless. And some heavy units were not just fast at getting into action. They were very fast.
He was entirely wrong in his assessment of the air. He knew nothing at all about the Kiowa Warriors.
"Major Carranza," said Oshima.
"Commander?" said Carranza.
"I would like you to lead the counterattack," said Oshima.
"Personally?" said Carranza.
"They need your leadership," said Oshima.
You're sentencing me to die, thought Carranza. We may well triumph, but I will be killed. It was less a feeling than a certainty.
It was odd. He did not feel anything except a certain impatience.
Oshima watched Carranza leave the command bunker. Twenty feet up, his armored reaction force sat waiting. Facing them was a ramp leading to a hydraulically controlled bombproof door similar to those installed on missile silos.
The armored door opened up directly into the hangar. For maximum shock power, the armored force could assemble a dozen tanks or more before attacking.
Individually, tanks could be picked off one by one, but en masse they were an armored fist that few soldiers could withstand.
A rifle was useless against a tank. If you stood your ground, you were crushed. AT4s and LAWS could destroy armor, but these were close-range weapons whose backblasts gave away their firing positions when used. A wedge of tanks advancing with guns blazing away was every infantryman's nightmare.
* * * * *
General Mike Gannon watched radio aerials sprout. The news of Dave Palmer's death had just come in from the air force, and he was momentarily stunned.
Divisional HQ occupied a pair of two-thousand-pound-bomb craters. The area was already covered over with camouflage netting and sweating paratroopers were further reinforcing the position with sandbagged top cover. It was not so much that generals deserved special protection, but more the basic fact that the radios had to be kept safe.
Without radio communications, the 82nd would be shorn of most of its effective striking power. Air, artillery, antitank, his own armor, and his maneuver battalions all needed to be coordinated. The Kiowa Warriors and the Spectre gunships were his windows into the evolving battle. Certainly all concerned knew their individual roles, but in an airborne operation things changed at speed.
First Brigade were netted in and progressing well. Second Brigade had called for artillery support. They were up against a network of bunkers defended by minefields. The air force had made two runs but then had run out of ordnance. The Spectre gunships were otherwise engaged. The A10s were around, but for some technical reason they could not be contacted.
Under heavy fire, troopers were clearing paths through the minefields by advancing on their stomachs and poking with fiberglass rods. God knows how they had the guts to do it. It was not like they could take their time. During an airborne assault this intricate and highly dangerous job was performed at speed. It had to be done that way. You had to get through. Failure was not an option.
The strike momentum had to be kept up.
The artillery was still not in action. One battery had landed in a minefield, and the gunners rushing to unpack their pieces had taken casualties as they moved in. Another battery had been hit by a mortar strike.
Gannon missed Palmer. Dave was the best executive officer he had ever had, and combined they made a near-perfect team. Gannon was a fighting general at his absolute best when leading men. Palmer was the imperturbable organization man who kept the structure together and the information flowing. The thought that he'd just been blown out of the sky and was now... gone, was sickening.
Gone! What more could you say? You were supposed to be safe at 20,000 feet up, but that was an illusion. Nowhere was safe during an airborne assault.
There was a boom as a 105mm howitzer went off and then another. The camouflage netting fluttered as the shock waves spread.
The noise jolted Gannon back into action. Despite all the shit that had been thrown at them, the gunners were back on the firing line. He looked at his watch. They had been on the ground only twenty-two minutes. The opposition was heavier than he had expected. The air force had worked right through the targeting board, but the terrorists were dug more effectively than he been believed. And the intelligence on mines had been inadequate.
You could prepare as much as you liked, but when it came right down to it every battle had to be fought. There was no easy way.
Gannon suddenly thought of the supergun. If Livermore was wrong, no matter what the 82nd accomplished, a whole lot of his young men were going to die.
The operations board was coming up with the division's assets. The Kiowa Warriors, electronic countermeasures, artillery, mortars, his TWO missiles mounted on Humvees, the Sheridan tanks, the heavy machine guns. All were now unpacked and operational.
Twenty-seven minutes in. Not good enough. They could always do better.
But not bad.
Gannon studied the big operations map. The wild card mission was the one commanded by Fitzduane. He was heading across to the hangar to link up with a Delta team, and together they were going to try and flush Oshima out of her bunker.
In Gannon's professional opinion, it was a fool's mission, since penetrating a series of armored doors to a location sixty feet underground was tantamount to suicide.
Nevertheless, the game in this case was certainly worth the candle. Gannon had studied Oshima's file and had walked through the bloodstained wreckage in Fayetteville. Oshima was the nearest thing to pure evil that so far in his life he had ever encountered.
Fitzduane, Al Lonsdale, that Washington fellow Cochrane, and then Brock's little army. They were good people and did not deserve to die. But then, neither had Dave Palmer.
"General?" said Carlson, who was standing in as exec. "We've got a report from the Delta observer team on the hangar roof. Armor, sir, and lots of it. Twenty T53s, and they're still coming out of the ground like dragon's teeth."
"Colonel Fitzduane?" said Gannon.
"Raising him now, sir," said Carlson. "But he'll know soon enough. They're heading right for him."
Fitzduane's minder, thought Gannon. Lieutenant Brock. The LouisianaTrainingCenter. OPFOR had attacked in force and caught Brock in a situation just like this.
Using pre-positioned AT4s, Brock had fought one of the best infantry rear-guard actions against armor that Gannon had ever seen. Kill a couple of tanks, make smoke, and fall back in the confusion. Next time they advanced, hit them from a different angle. Shoot and scoot ground-pounder style.
But the enemy had been weaker than this, and technically Brock had still been killed, though he had certainly proved that the right infantry tactics could cause unsupported armor serious grief.
You could harass and you could damage, but in the final analysis pure firepower tended to tilt the scales.
And this was no training exercise.
"Tell Colonel Fitzduane's team to let the enemy armor right through," he said, "and make smoke behind them." He tapped at the airport layout. "We'll let Second Brigade block them, and we'll hit them from the flanks with TOWs and the Sheridans. Sheepdog tactics. I want that hostile force to have only one way out, and that's into their own minefield. Give the Second Brigade all the artillery support we've got. Let the Kiowas loose. Get the air force in on the act, but tell them to be damn careful. Gunships only until we can sort out who is where."
"Airborne, sir," said Carlson.
Gannon had heard the 82nd referred to as no more than a speed bump when up against massed enemy armor. He had taken the remark ill.
If his division was a mere obstacle, it was a speed bump with real killing teeth.
* * * * *
Fitzduane hugged the ground as Carranza's armor rumbled past.
Stabs of flame and the deafening crack of their cannon punctuated the chattering of their coaxial machine guns.
The detritus of a bomb-blasted air defense position gave some visual cover.
Bodies and pieces of bodies completed the picture. A severed leg lay six inches in front of his eyes. He considered that he was learning more about the violent disassembly of the human form on this mission than he really wanted to know.
An armored thrust from beneath the ground. They had expected something — some kind of counterpunch — and had prepared a reserve, but the scale was disconcerting.
They had planned to bomb using penetrator weapons, which could deal with deeply buried bunkers up to forty feet or so, but had restricted their use after further consideration when the consequences of setting off the nerve agent had been considered. True, the two elements of the binary gas were stored separately, according to Rheiman, but who knew what changes Oshima had made in the last couple of days.
It had been a rational decision to forgo the penetrator bombs, but as the massed wedge of tanks had punched out of the hangar toward them, Fitzduane had second thoughts. Mere flesh and blood seemed woefully inadequate to counter this massed steel killing machine.
He wished the hell the airborne had Guntracks.
He had an enormous urge to flee very fast.
The armored vehicle wedge included vehicle-mounted guided-missile teams. Unless taken out, they would keep the Spectre gunships out of the way. Countering Oshima's surprise was going to be down to the infantry.
Brock was gritting his teeth with frustration. The Scouts were correctly positioned to take the armor from the flanks and rear, but he was under direct orders to do nothing. There was also the reality that they were down to only a handful of AT4s. Still, his two Sheridans were positioned off to the right, and they could have really stirred the pot.
Fitzduane put his Kevlar next to Brock's. The noise of engines, the squeal and rumble of tracks, and the constant gunfire made normal speech impossible. He bellowed, and Brock could just hear.
Fitzduane repeated his orders.
"WHERE THE ARMOR CAME UP, WE CAN GET DOWN!" he bawled. "IF THEY CAN GET TANKS UP, WE CAN GET TANKS DOWN! AS SOON AS THE FUCKS ARE PAST, GET YOUR PET SHERIDANS AND LET'S DO IT. TELL THEM TO USE THE SIDE DOOR!"
Brock nodded and held out his hand for the RT. It was slapped into his hand. "WHAT ABOUT THE TWO KIOWAS?" he shouted.
Fitzduane contemplated the vast hangar. It seemed big enough. "WHY NOT!" he said.
The noise of roaring engines diminished as the last enemy armored vehicle squealed by. Fitzduane had counted forty-seven vehicles in all. He revised his total downward as two of the missile carriers exploded. Lased by Delta from the hangar roof, he conjectured accurately. Still not his war for the moment.
A row of 120mm mortar shells from division burst behind the advancing enemy armor, providing smoke cover for Fitzduane's strike force.
The Scouts poured automatic-weapons fire and 40mm grenades into the hangar. Muzzle flashes identified the opposition.
Laser beams flashed out and painted their targets, to be followed split seconds later by bursts of aimed fire.
The two Kiowas moved up and, hovering only a few feet off the ground, let loose ripple-fired antipersonnel rockets.
The terrorists inside the hangar consisted mainly of mechanics and logistics personnel who had been concentrating on helping the armor attack. They had given almost no thought to defending the hangar itself.
Many were cut down in the Scout's initial fusillade of fire. The Kiowas Hydra rockets killed most of the remainder.
The thirteen survivors ran and died as two Sheridan tanks burst through the side wall with machine guns blazing.
Scouts leapfrogged forward and secured the hangar. As they did so, Delta troopers rappelled down from the roof and reinforced Fitzduane's little army.
As he shook hands with the first one and smelled the bird droppings, Brock sniffed and made a face. "What the fuck?" he said. "We'll gas ‘em out."
Ten seconds later, the shaped charge blew and the huge armored door that concealed the ramp in the floor fell away. The Sheridans fired into the cavern below and were joined by the two Kiowas, who were now firing their rockets from inside the hangar. A second shaped charge went off and blew open the steel grille covering a ventilation shaft. Powerful antipersonnel demolition charges were dropped down and exploded with such force that the whole floor shook.
While the Sheridans and half the Scouts roared down the ramp, Fitzduane, Lonsdale, Cochrane, and the balance of the command lowered themselves into the darkness.
* * * * *
The padre pushed another blade of rubble off the runway and then paused to wipe his forehead. He was streaming with sweat.
Driving a bulldozer was harder than it looked. Civilian vehicles might have air-conditioned cabs and soft seats, but the Airborne's equipment was strictly military specification and designed for ruggedness rather than comfort. Civilian ‘dozers did not get dropped.
Rounds spanged off his armored front, and he crouched down in his seat as he raised the blade slightly, gunned the engine and reversed.
Doubtless it was consoling for the engine, having the massive protection of the blade in front, but it was also a reminder that he, the human factor, was sitting up top exposed to the elements and a not inconsiderable amount of incoming fire.
The sky was crisscrossed with tracer, the solid flames of gunship fire, and the visual chaos of exploding missiles, artillery shells, mortar bombs, and other weaponry. Everywhere he looked through his night-vision goggles, he could see targets being painted with the troopers' laser beams, and he knew that the quick flash of a beam was being accompanied by bursts of aimed fire. Targets were being sought out and neutralized one by one.
He was conscious of the fact that his pastoral duties were now being created by that fire and he should probably hand over to someone else and go and provide succor to the wounded, but finding someone to delegate to was no small problem. Also, he was well aware that no matter how helpful a padre's words might be to a wounded trooper, the practical benefit of getting in reinforcements and being able to fly out the wounded could be even more appreciated.
The airstrip was nearly clear, and as best he could see the engineers clearing the mines were finished. He throttled up and headed toward a pile of cement-filled fifty-five-gallon drums. The stench of diesel fumes filled the air and mixed with the odors of sweat, fear, blood, and explosive fumes that now pervaded the battlefield.
Someone ran toward him and shouted. They were pointing toward the oil drums. The noise of the bulldozer drowned the shouter's voice, but it was clear he was indicating the obstructions still to be cleared.
The padre waved an acknowledgment and trundled on.
"MINES!" screamed the engineer behind him. "MINES! WE HAVEN'T CLEARED THERE YET! STOP, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!"
The padre sped across the airstrip and then slowed down as he approached the drums. He lowered the blade and began moving forward. Suddenly he was struck violently on his right side and propelled off the bulldozer onto the runway. He hit the ground hard and painfully, and as he shook himself he became aware that there was a heavy weight on his back.
He began to struggle, and the weight on his back moved. Seconds later, the weight was gone altogether and he rolled over. In front of him, a paratrooper was getting to his feet. It might have been a normal parachute landing fall recovery, except that this paratrooper had his arms through his straps as if he had jumped without putting on the ‘chute properly. He seemed to have descended just holding on to the thing.
The trooper, Colonel Dave Palmer, put out his hand. "Sorry about that, Padre. Left in a hurry."
"Judas Priest, Dave!" said the padre. "You're supposed to wear that bloody thing." He struggled to his feet.
Driverless, the bulldozer was still trundling along with the pile of concrete-filled oil drums rolling in front of it.
"My bulldozer!" cried the padre.
There was a vivid flash as the antitank mine blew and the entire bulldozer seemed to rise in the air and fly for several yards before exploding. A further mine was set off, and then one explosion followed another.
The blast threw the remaining obstacles clear of the paved strip.
"Interesting way to clear a runway, Padre," said Palmer.
"The Lord helped," said the padre hoarsely.
* * * * *
Carranza's tank force hit the perimeter of Second Brigade's firing line and veered away to the right as a barrage of TOWs, Hellfire missiles, AT4s and Sheridan tank fire plowed into it.
The volume of fire was bad enough. The accuracy was horrifying. All around him tanks were blowing up, men were on fire, and his command was dying.
Within twenty-three seconds, Carranza had lost two-thirds of his force and was driving desperately away from the wall of death that faced him. He tried to grapple with what he was up against. Paratroopers were lightly armed troops. This was firepower of a different magnitude.
A further six tanks exploded behind him. He caught a quick glimpse of a Sheridan tank in the distance. The American tank was aluminum and virtually obsolete, he had been told. He had not taken in that it was fast, light, carried the biggest gun of any tank in general use, and had been upgraded with long-range optics and night-vision equipment.
His one thought now was to get away. He did not care where he was going or what he would do when he got there. He just wanted to flee.
Shells burst around his tank and one wall glowed red when a fragment hit.
Carranza was bruised and bleeding from being bounced around the metal box.
Beside him his gunner had abandoned any attempt to load and fire the main gun. His face was gray with desperation and the foreknowledge of certain death. The driver slewed the tank from side to side in the hope that the jinking would cause the incoming fire to miss. It was making Carranza sick.
The tank drove right through the perimeter defenses and into the minefield beyond.
The mines were laid according to Soviet doctrine, in a massive belt three hundred meters deep. The first two mines had been carelessly laid and did not explode. Carranza's tank hit the third mine after thirty-two meters. The force of the mine was so great, it blew the entire tank into the air.
The tank was still in the air when it was his nearly simultaneously by a Hellfire missile and the 152mm shell from a Sheridan. The combined blast blew all the mines in a two-hundred-meter radius and could be seen with clarity from the command-and-control aircraft 20,000 feet up.
Carranza and his entire crew were vaporized.
* * * * *
Fitzduane fired two rounds from his M16 into the torso of a terrorist in the weapons pit and rammed the barrel into the face of the second man. The terrorist went down and Fitzduane thrust his fighting knife into his throat and wiped it on the dead man's fatigues.
He reloaded and checked his pouches. Ammunition was getting low.
Getting through the hangar had been easy. In contrast, the cavernous bunker below seemed to be defended by some kind of palace guard. They had blown the Sheridans as they came down the ramp, and since then it had been basic infantry slogging as the Scouts and Delta cleaned out a series of interlocking defensive positions.
"Why the fuck didn't I bring a Barrett?" asked Lonsdale.
The heavy rifle fire would have punched through the armor plate of the weapons pits.
The M60 rounds made shallow dents. The M16 rounds just bounced off. They were out of 40mm grenades. They had fired the last of the AT4s. They were nearly out of everything.
"Why the fuck didn't I stay in Washington?" said Cochrane.
"We'd have missed you," said Lonsdale caustically.
"Even if they don't hit us," said Cochrane, "they're going to pollute us to death. The air quality in this place sucks."
"It could get a shitload worse," said Lonsdale.
Fitzduane was silent. If Rheiman's hand-drawn map was to be trusted, beyond that metal door was a hatchway that lead down two flights of metal stairs to the command bunker. Straight ahead was a nerve-agent store. Behind them, at the other end of the cavern, was the second nerve-gas store. If nothing had been moved, the unit had already secured the Xyclax Gamma 18. One component alone was useless.
Of course, Oshima did not have to have moved all the components together. She could have had just one cylinder transported. According to what he had been told, one matched pair of Xyclax Gamma 18 cylinders properly distributed would be enough to take out the entire airfield, let alone the cavern.
"Brock," he called.
"Yo!" said Brock.
"We need a couple of grenades up here," said Fitzduane. "Get someone to check the lockers in the Sheridan that didn't blow."
"Hot damn!" said Brock. "Neat thinking. Those guys are squirrels."
Two minutes later, the weighted end of a parachute cord fell beside Fitzduane. Brock was across to the left and behind a support pillar. He couldn’t get any closer and keep breathing.
The terrorist machine gun and three AK-47s spat flame as the saw the cord and tried to cut it with fire. Ricochets zinged along the cavern. The concrete floor of the cavern spewed fragments as rounds bit into it around the line of the cord.
Fitzduane saw the edge of the cord fray. If he pulled too fast it could break. If he pulled too slowly the contents of the pouch at the end could go up.
Thinking of what was inside, it was an easy decision.
He pulled hard. The cord broke, but enough momentum had already been transferred to the pouch. It slid into home base.
Fitzduane opened the pouch and looked at Brock. There were three grenades inside. "What the fuck!" he mouthed.
Brock shrugged. "Go for it!" he shouted.
Fitzduane handed grenades to Lonsdale and Cochrane. They looked at him.
"All together," said Fitzduane. "FOUR, THREE, TWO..."
The three grenades arced through the air. Two landed inside the gun emplacement.
Four terrorists erupted from their position, guns blazing. Concentrated fire from Scout Platoon cut them to pieces. Smoke from the three signaling grenades filled the air.
Choking, Fitzduane dashed forward.
The steel door had represented a possible escape for its guardians. It was unlocked. He pulled the heavy lever and the door swung open.
He hugged the left side of the door frame. Green, purple, and yellow smoke was making the place untenable. If anyone was on the other side, they would fire into the smoke. Probably.
Or maybe if they were smart and professional, they would wait and try to pick out some kind of a human shape. But it would not really be savvy to wait. Any attacker clever enough to get this far would throw in stun grenades.
If anyone was inside, they should be firing by now.
"On your right," said Lonsdale from the right side of the door frame.
"Ready," said Cochrane's voice from behind Lonsdale.
"GO!" snapped Fitzduane.
Rows of cylinders behind a double steel grid faced them. A door on the right wall led down to the command bunker. It was closed and of the same size and mass as the kind of construction used in bank vaults.
The room itself was empty.
They examined the door. It was not just locked. It was secured as if part of the structure. There was not a hint of how it might be opened. The entire locking mechanism must be located on the other side.
"You say the magic word and this substantial chunk of real estate swings open," said Lonsdale. "You go down two flights of metal stairs. You are faced with another blast door and you knock politely. It, too, swings open and there is Oshima, a smile on her face and her arms open in welcome." He paused. "Or then again, maybe not. Either way, I don't think a foot in the right place is going to achieve much. This fucking thing is built."
Close examination showed that the problem did not end with the door. The whole wall seemed to be of similar strength, and the joins were so finely machined there was no place to pack explosive.
"We can huff and puff," said Cochrane, or we can go and get a cup of coffee while the combat engineers make with the plastic. This is safe blowing. This isn't a job for clean-living amateurs."
Fitzduane rubbed his chin. Oshima had learned much of her trade from the Hangman. The Hangman always had an escape route, and a few surprises for unwelcome visitors.
He switched his gaze to the cylinders of nerve agent. How many should there be?
"We hold here," he said.
* * * * *
Twenty feet below Fitzduane, Oshima's hand was poised above the firing button. The two keys were already in position and had been turned. The firing release code had been entered. The supergun was fully charged with hydrogen and helium and was ready to fire.
She hesitated. If only she had more time. One missile would accomplish so little compared to what could be done. Now when she fired, the attacking paratroops would certainly assault the supergun valley and there would be no time to reload.
This would be one single gesture of hate, not the orchestrated campaign she would have liked.
Could Carranza's force make the difference? Possibly, but unlikely.
Never wait until the last minute, the Hangman had said. Society is corrupt. People are venal. You will always be presented with other opportunities. They will hand you the very weapons you need to destroy them. In their avariciousness and ignorance they arm their very enemies.
Strike without pity and disappear. Prepare your escape route in advance, and when they think they have you, hurt them.
The confusion will aid your escape. When they are close and think they have you they get careless. They always do. You bait the trap and they will enter it and be destroyed. But don't be greedy. Don't stay and watch. Never wait until the last minute.
Jin Endo would be coming with her and five others. Enough to fight a rear-guard action if needed. Enough to distract and confuse, yet a small enough group to evade detection.
Six others in the command bunker would not be leaving. They had served their purpose. If left unharmed they might have attempted to interfere with the nerve-gas mechanism. Their throats had been cut as they sat in front of their consoles, and the air was thick with the smell of their blood.
The two cylinders sat linked to the dispersion unit. A timer was attached, ready to be activated. When their attackers broke in, the entire command bunker would be flooded with nerve agent, and with luck it would spread throughout the complex and to the attacking troops beyond.
But she would have to be well away by then. So really there was no good reason to wait.
Oshima mentally counted down, preparing herself for the shaft of flame as the huge weapon hurled its projectile toward Washington, D.C. In her mind she could see the path of the missile as it shot out of the supergun barrel, climbed up into the stratosphere, and then curved gracefully down toward its target below. How long would it take? A few minutes, no more.
As the missile neared its destination, a pressure-controlled mechanism would activate the two cylinders of gas. They would blend and become a liquid horror. The dispersion unit would cut in and the air over the capital of the most powerful nation in the world would fill with a vast cloud of nerve gas.
Invisibly the deadly miasma would float toward the ground.
It would be hours before the Americans would realize they had been hit, and by then it would be too late. Everywhere people would start dying. They would die at work, they would die at home. Senators and congressmen would collapse as they spoke. Lobbyists would spit blood as they advanced their causes. Policemen would die as they patrolled the streets. Prisoners would puke their guts out as they lay behind bars.
Across the Potomac, the military in the Pentagon would be hit and would be powerless to respond.
In Arlington and Rosslyn and a score of suburbs, citizens would drink the contaminated water and be affected. Ice cubes would kill. The touch of a hand or the gentlest of kisses would kill. The air itself, the very grass you walked on, the ventilator in your automobile. All would kill.
The cameras concealed throughout the supergun valley had audio pickups as well as visual. Oshima wanted to savor every detail. She heard the klaxon sound and saw the gun crew put on ear protectors and scurry for cover in the firing bunker.
The supergun was a truly massive weapon, and as Oshima looked at the monitors, she was entranced by the sheer destructive potential of such power. And you could make one of these things out of microfiber-reinforced concrete. The implications were exhilarating.
The countdown in Spanish commenced. "Five — Four — Three — Two — One — FIRE!"
The last word issued in a triumphant shout and then repeated by Oshima. "FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!"
There was the expected thunderclap of explosions, but the sight Oshima actually witnessed strained her credibility.
The entire supergun, all 656 feet and 21,000 tons of it, blew apart in a rippling roaring thundering inferno of flame and destruction that was the most powerful explosion that Oshima had ever seen.
The structures in the valley were swept away as if by some Devil's breath.
The glass-fronted bunker containing the terrorist firing team — set across the divide of the valley — was hit by the blast wave and shattered as vast lumps of flying matter smashed into it.
For the next few seconds, the sky rained pieces of the supergun and a thick cloud of dust and debris stained the sky.
And then there was a dreadful silence.
"Fitzduane-san!" hissed Oshima, the hate thick in her voice.