Fitzduane laughed. 'You're not keeping up to date, Al,' he said. 'Irwin has a new fast-opening combat ‘chute. It will open in time and you will land as lightly as a ballerina.'
Lonsdale looked dubious. 'I'd hate to try this thing only to find out that the minimum jump height spec was just a copywriter getting carried away. Parachuting is like sleeping with a few snakes. Most people don't fancy it, but dangerous as it looks, it's actually quite safe until something goes wrong. Then you rarely get a second chance.'
Fitzduane spoke quietly. 'I jumped with the Irwin a week ago. Seven jumps in all with seven different ‘chutes, each time at two-fifty. I was curious too.'
'I guess the first time was the hardest, Colonel,' said Lonsdale slowly. 'Well, you don't look as if you bounced, so let's move on.'
'We've got satellite and other intel on what happens where on the plateau,' said Fitzduane. 'You have got to remember it consists of hundreds of thousands of square miles of decidedly inhospitable terrain. Theoretically it is patrolled, but in practice that means that the main oil facilities and pipelines get regular attention and the balance is just ignored except for random helicopter overflights. Frankly, what else can they do? What else do they need to do?'
Lonsdale was lying back with his eyes closed.
He was trying to build up a mental model of Fitzduane's plan. The fact that helicopters were not being used had thrown him a little initially, but now he was getting into the swing of things. It helped that he had trained with Guntracks and the Rangers in Ireland. He had participated in low-altitude parachute extraction exercises before.
LAPES was an extraordinary technique if you were not used to it, but it worked. A cargo aircraft like the C130 throttled back to 120 miles an hour and flew as little as six feet above the ground, almost as if landing. Then, at the designated spot, a parachute was opened and as it filled it pulled a palletized Guntrack – or other equipment – out of the rear door of the aircraft.
The parachute acted as a brake to kill the forward momentum. The effects of the short vertical drop were countered by special compressible pallets and careful packing.
It was not a barrel of laughs for humans, but for supplies and equipment it was remarkably successful.
'So,' said Lonsdale, 'we land inside the plateau rim far away from the outer defenses but also some distance from the terrorist bases. Better yet, we pick some godforsaken spot which is off any regularly patrolled route and has cover. We are all alone with the scorpions. We have gotten in undetected during the night. Now we lie up well camouflaged and hope some wandering peasant does not stumble on us.'
'The plateau is clear of wandering peasants,' said Fitzduane. 'For a start, since there is neither arable land nor grazing there is no reason to be there. Second, Quintana obligingly rounded up the few remaining Indians and either killed them or trucked them down to a settlement on the coast. Whatever he is up to, he is serious about not being seen. But it will help us.'
'How many people and vehicles are we using?' said Lonsdale.
'The strike team, including myself,' said Fitzduane, 'will consist of fifteen personnel – five three-person teams in five Guntracks.'
'Why those numbers?' said Lonsdale.
'As you will remember,' said Fitzduane, 'a Guntrack needs a crew of three for optimum effectiveness. Driver, front gunner/navigator, and rear gunner. Regarding the number of vehicles, five is the minimum number required to allow successful completion of the mission plus some redundancy. The capacity of the C130s comes into play. It's a judgment call.'
Fitzduane woke up at dawn the following day as the morning light streamed into his bedroom. Without thinking, he reached out for Kathleen and then sat up with a start as he remembered. He lay back and closed his eyes and focused on the mission. He blotted Kathleen from his mind.
'The team,' said Lonsdale over breakfast. The sun was well up, and they were eating outside. 'The fighting fifteen. As of now, there is you and there is me, which is nice but it makes only two.'
Fitzduane was looking over the deck at the yard below. He turned back to Lonsdale. 'Al,' he said. 'I can count eight snakes down there. And they are not babies.'
'They beat hell out of a guard dog,' said Lonsdale equably.
He refilled their coffee. 'The team?' he repeated.
'There is substantial backing for the operation within the system,' said Fitzduane, 'but the number-one rule is that I can't use any serving member of the U.S. armed forces for the ground team.'
'Deniability,' said Lonsdale scathingly. 'Shit, you would think we would have learned by now. This smacks of politics and PresidentGeorgieFalls and his abiding love of playing both ends against the middle. It's this kind of indecisiveness that makes outfits like Delta all training and no action. It's why terrorists supported by countries like Iran piss on us and get away with it.'
Fitzduane was beginning to see why Master Sergeant Al Lonsdale had quit Delta.
'Think positive, Al,' he said. 'The positive aspect of all this is that we have near-total flexibility. We don't have a chain of command stretching through endless second-guessers to a situation room in the White House. We aren't being micromanaged. We can do what has to be done, how we want it, and when we want it.'
Lonsdale shrugged. He could blow hot, but he cooled off as quickly. He smiled. 'Put that way, you've got a point, but there are still a few Delta people I would give a lot for. You've got to understand, Colonel, the U.S. Army of today is the most powerful, best equipped, and best trained in the world. Sure we fuck up sometimes and use too much force or too much firepower, but most of those problems are political.
'The best of our people are not just good. They're real good. Too good to pass up. There's gotta be a way! And you can't mount an operation like this with amateurs.'
Fitzduane drank some coffee. 'I like to run in ArlingtonCemetery,' he said. 'A man whose premises we are using at present to operate from, Grant Lamar, suggested I might like to run a bit further – to FortMyer. There, I met a man called General Frampton.'
'The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs?' said Lonsdale incredulously.
'Something like that,' said Fitzduane mildly. 'He said his discussion with me was entirely unofficial but he would like to introduce some men who had suddenly resigned from the U.S. Army and were in need of employment in civilian life. He said they would consider anything, even a short assignment. He added that he hoped that he could entice them to reenlist in the future.'
'Who are they?' said Lonsdale. 'I may know a couple of them.'
Fitzduane told him.
'Fucking A!' said Lonsdale. 'These are my people.' He stood up and shouted 'Ya-hoo!' The sound echoed back from the walls of the valley.
'I don't think that is entirely a coincidence,' said Fitzduane gently. 'And please do not disturb the snakes.'
Lonsdale grinned. 'They don't mind the odd yell,' he said. 'These snakes are Arizonans. They have been listening to Indians and cowboys sounding off for the last hundred years.'
Fitzduane looked along the deserted valley. Someday, snakes or not, it was going to be built upon from end to end. He had already noticed some Realtor's signs hammered into the brush as they drove to Al's house. It was quite a paradox. It was just too beautiful to escape unspoiled.
Lonsdale saw where he was looking and read his expression. 'Yeah,' he said with feeling.
He turned back to the subject. 'You and I and six Delta. We're up to eight.'
'Chifune Tanabu and Oga,' said Fitzduane. 'They've been tracking Reiko Oshima and Yaibo for quite some time, and they'd like to finish it. You remember Chifune from Japan, Al, and you also met Oga. He's ex-Japanese airborne. Both are good shooters.'
Lonsdale remembered how taken aback he had been when he discovered that the security agent he was to work with was not just a woman but someone so slight and feminine and beautiful as Chifune. She looked too gentle to hurt a fly. Appearances in her case were totally misleading. She was a crack shot and cool as ice under fire. Quite a woman, quite a person.
